A Tale Of The Continuing Time - The Last Dancer Part 5

Without apparent pause Denice said, "Denice Seych.e.l.le."

There was a long silence while Ichabod scanned his inskin. Finally he shook himself and looked straight at her. "Robert was right; you're incredibly good, 'Selle Daimara. I don't think I've ever seen anybody before with such remarkable control of her nervous system. You damped out over ninety-five percent of the prior reactions to your lies."

Denice brought her hands together, released the two damp truth plates into her lap. "Ichabod, I've only ever done this before when I needed to survive. For whatever it's worth, I'm sorry." She turned slightly, glanced at the man standing behind her. "You go to sleep." She turned back to Ichabod as Bruce crumpled to the ground, found the huge bulk of the man already moving toward her, with amazing speed.

She made no move to protect herself, did not take the time to get out of his way; as time slowed around her she reached out, Touched Ichabod Martin, and as his body crashed into hers like a puppet suddenly bereft of its strings,changed him.

Ichabod Martin awoke to a slight headache. He shook his head slightly. "My head hurts."

Bruce was already awake, standing at attention behind them. Ichabod looked at Bruce, looked again at the young-woman sitting in front of him. "Denice? What happened to your eye?"

The woman blinked; one hand went to touch a growing bruise. "This? Um, nothing. I'll change my makeup to cover it before I go to see Councilor Ripper."

"Oh." Ichabod shrugged. "I'm sure that'll be fine. I'm looking forward to working with you, 'Selle Daimara. I've seen the vid Robert sent of you in motion. I'm really looking forward to it," he said again.

"Thank you, Ichabod."

A puzzled expression touched Ichabod again. "My head really hurts."

Denice Daimara said softly, "You wouldn't believe how mine feels."

Denice's appointment with Ripper was not scheduled until 2:15. She had nearly an hour to kill before Ripper would be available to speak with her.

She went to the women's restroom, called the lights down as low as they would go-it was a public restroom, and they would not go all the way down to darkness-went into the stall, closed and locked the door. She put the seat down on the toilet and sat down, closed her eyes, and waited for the pulsing pain to go away.

Before leaving, nearly an hour later, she stopped at the mirrors and tuned her makeup for a light blue shade that covered the bruise Ichabod had given her when he crashed into her earlier. It did not quite harmonize with the white and silver suit she wore, but aside from naked skin it was her best choice of the patterns stored in her makeup key.

She waited while her skin changed color, and then left to go meet Unification Councilor Dougla.s.s Ripper.

- 3 -.

We shall need compromises in the days ahead, to be sure. But these will be, or should be, compromises of issues, not of principles. We can compromise our political positions, but not ourselves. We can resolve the clash of interests without conceding our ideals. And even the necessity for the right kind of compromise does not eliminate the need for those idealists and reformers who keep our compromises moving ahead, who prevent all political situations from meeting the description supplied by Shaw: "smirched with compromise, rotted with opportunism, mildewed by expedience, stretched out of shape with wirepulling and putrefied with permeation."

Compromise need not mean cowardice...

-John Fitzgerald Kennedy,Profiles in Courage Unification Councilor Dougla.s.s Ripper's office covered most of the 414th floor of the Unification Council s.p.a.cesc.r.a.per. The area was huge, over twenty-five thousand square meters, un.o.bstructed by divisions. The area was empty but for the desk that sat against one wall. The desk, of some black stone, was three meters long, two wide. Approaching it across the soft gray carpet, beneath the bright sunpaint, Denice felt a flicker of annoyance; she was meant to feel dwarfed in the midst of the vastness, and it was working.

The trio of dark gray chairs placed in front of the huge black desk were the same size and model as Ripper's chair. The man sitting behind the desk, watching Denice approach, was remarkably unprepossessing. Denice found herself, oddly, disappointed. Ripper looked like a midlevel executive of any large corporation; tall, brown-eyed and dark-haired, wearing an immaculately tailored blue pinstripe suit. His features were even and regular and slightly tanned; pleasant without being particularly handsome.

Ripper rose from his desk as she approached, and came forward to greet her. " 'Selle Daimara." His handshake was firm but not overbearing; his hands were soft and uncalloused, the hands of a man who had never in his life done any sort of physical labor. Ripper released her hand after a moment and gestured at the middle seat of the three.

Denice seated herself. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Councilor Ripper."

"Likewise, 'Selle Daimara. Robert speaks highly of you."

"I know."

Ripper leaned back, watching Denice unabashedly. "I watched your video; I like the way you move."

"Thank you."

"I've known Robert I think twenty years now. Generally when he recommends somebody, I'm interested. I've hired five men from him in, I don't know, maybe the last ten years." Ripper paused.

"Thirteen years. I hired the first guy after I was elected Unification Councilor back in late '62. Why do you want to work for me, as opposed to, say, SecGen Eddore?"

"Eddore is a man with no morals."

Ripper sat watching her, mild, sardonic amus.e.m.e.nt hovering around the corners of his mouth. "Oh? And I'm not?"

Denice Castanaveras fixed her gaze upon the man who would be Secretary General, and spoke evenly and without emphasis. "Are you?"

"Well, that," said Ripper, "is a d.a.m.ned good question." He paused, said, "I've audited your resume. It's impressive, but it doesn't tell me anything aboutyou. Tell me about yourself. Starting when you were young."

"I've studied with Robert since I was fourteen. At first-"

"Younger."

Denice paused, editing truth out of things she could not tell him; she found, somewhat to her surprise, that she did not want to lie to Ripper. "My parents died in the Troubles. Both of them. I don't remember much from my childhood. I had a brother, but we were separated in the riots following the Troubles, and I haven't seen him in over twelve years. He's probably dead. I was-" Denice paused again. She did not have to pretend difficulty in remembering; the first few months of the Troubles were a hazy period in her life. "I didn't stay anywhere for a week or a month, something like that. I don't really know how long.

Sometimes people fed me and sometimes I stole things to eat. I was raped at least once. Maybe more, I don't remember."

Ripper said softly, "After that?"

"I woke up one morning and I was in a big barracks. It was Public Labor, but I didn't know that at the time, didn't know what Public Labor was." Denice shrugged. "So I learned. I was in Public Labor for four years. When I was thirteen a woman named Orinda Gleygava.s.s paid my Labor, debt and got me out. She was a dancer and teacher. She gave me a home; she was the one who sent me to study with Robert."

"Orinda Gley-what?"

"Gleygava.s.s."

"A total stranger paid your Public Labor debt? Why?"

"She did it for a lot of girls. She was wealthy and she wanted to do something for all the people the Troubles damaged. I had some dance background from before the Troubles, a little training. Madame Gleygava.s.s trained me as a dancer, had Robert train my muscles. I learned that I enjoyed martial discipline more than I enjoyed dance."

"Ah. Why is that name familiar to me?"

"Orinda Gleygava.s.s? She died a couple of years ago in an accident; before she died, she led what she liked to claim was the best dance troupe in the System. Itwas the best known. You're a politician; even if you don't remember the Gleygava.s.s dance troupe, youmust rememberLeviathan. A group of Unification Councilors tried to shut it down because they were upset about the-"

Dougla.s.s Ripper sat up very straight, looking for the first time more than professionally interested in their conversation. "Oh, my. Iknow you."

"Really?"

"You danced inLeviathan."

"You saw it?"

"Twice. By Harry-you must have been what, sixteen? Back in '69?"

"And 70. Yes."

"Good Lord. You were the most-" Ripper shook himself slightly, made an irritable gesture. "I hated the play. Revisionist history of the worst sort-I met Jules Moreau once before he died, and he was nothing like the character portrayed inLeviathan. Still-that bit at the end, where your character Marina seduced him-you've had biosculpture since then," he said abruptly. "Why?"

"I didn't like the way I looked. My b.r.e.a.s.t.s got too big to keep dancing; I had biosculpture to slim them down, and had my eyes done at the same time because I thought it would look attractive."

"It worked. So you were in Public Labor four years. How do you feel about that?"

Denice was surprised by the intensity of the feeling that came to her; it was nothing she had planned to say. She said fiercely, "That n.o.body should ever have to grow up in Public Labor again.Ever. That if there has to be a Ministry of Population Control, then we should demolish the current one and rebuild it from scratch. That the Peace Keeping Force should be kept out of the United States and out of the streets everywhere. I feel-that I need-I need to do something." She met the hard, skeptical gaze head-on, stared him down. "To make adifference."

Ripper nodded slowly. "Robert said you were good." He spoke with honest curiosity. "Why me?"

"To make a difference you have to be in the right place. And you're running for Secretary General in '76.".

"Could be."

"Your standing in the polls is at least five points over your nearest rival. There's no way you're not going to run. I spent the last six months researching members of the Unification Council. You're an American.

You were a Senator at the age of twenty-eight. If-"

Ripper snorted. "And when I was twelve I walked dogs for people. I got elected to the Senate as young as I did because it's a meaningless position and n.o.body else wanted the d.a.m.n job enough to outspend me for it."

"That meaningless position got you into the Unification Council."

Ripper shrugged. "The inc.u.mbent Councilor died in the Troubles. A right-place, right-time deal. 'Selle Daimara, you're not answering my question. If you've decided to work in politics, fair enough; the desire for public service gets sneered at these days, but it's very real. Still, you're bright and talented and I suspect there are half a dozen Unification Councilors besides myself who would hire you on Robert's recommendation-Iknow I'm not the only one who hires people Robert has trained."

"Why you?" Denice thought through how to say it, then shrugged and decided to put it bluntly. "You're my best guess. I don't know you, and what I know of how you've voted in the Council doesn't fill me with immense confidence. But you're no worse than most of the other Councilors, and better than some; and the fact that you're an American counts with me. What the Unification has done to Occupied America is a crime."

Ripper said simply, "The rage is there. We all know it, we all live with it. We all have it, even those of us who have become a part of the Unification. Our job is to make sure the rage never explodes. There are other things we do, but that's the key. Most of what you haven't liked about my voting record-well, some of it comes out of compromising with other Councilors, trading votes on things I don't care about in return for their votes on things about which I do care. It makes my voting record look inconsistent in places, but it's part of the business. But a lot of the rest has come about as a result of that fundamental goal: to keep the lid on a country that's been ready for rebellion for twenty years. A rebellion that Occupied Americacannot win. Why do you think I'm running for Secretary General?"

The a.n.a.lysis Denice gave him was, almost word for word, what Ralf the Wise and Powerful had said to her some two months prior: "This is the third, final term that Eddore is able to serve as Secretary General. If he were allowed another term you wouldn't run. You're popular but he's more popular and you'd lose. Virtually anyone running against him would except, maybe, Michael Moreau. But Moreau's not running, and in the '76 elections Eddorecan't run again. Recent polls give you thirty-two percent of the vote. That's over five percent higher than Zhao Pen, even with the bulk of the Chinese vote behind him. He'll get his billion-odd votes, but he won't get any more. And no Frenchman besides Moreau stands any chance at all, not in an honest election. The likeliest real opposition you'd face is Sanford Mtumka, down in Pan-Africa. There's a lot of ageist dissatisfaction with the current administration, and you're even younger than Eddore; you won't be considered any kind of an improvement. Mtumka's over eighty; most of the old vote will go to him, even after accounting for racial bias. But that's only nineteen percent."

Ripper laughed. "You've gamed this out for yourself. You want to work for a winner, and you think I can be one."

"I don't know, Councilor. All I know is you have a chance."

Ripper became abruptly still, poised like a hawk, and out of nowhere fixed a striking, improbably forceful gaze upon Denice; under the impact of that gaze, for the first time, Denice found it possible to believe that this was a man who might be running the Unification in another eighteen months. "Denice, if I offer you this job, you'll be traveling with me whenever I'm out of Capitol City, and during those times you'll be living with me more intimately than you've ever lived with anyone; twenty-four hours a day, from the moment we leave, Capitol City to the moment we return. In the performance of your job you'll be called on to shield my life with your own, to kill if it's necessary to defend me. Can you do that?"

"You're very eloquent, Councilor Ripper."

It stopped him; Ripper looked at her for a second. "I can be, with a good speech writer."

Denice knew the answer he was waiting for. "I've never killed anyone, Councilor Ripper. But I think I could do it once. After that I don't know."

Ripper nodded. "Fair enough. I like you. See Ichabod before you leave. In addition to everything else he handles most of my personal secretarial work. He'll walk you through the paperwork and security background check." He stood, held his hand out again. "Welcome aboard."

"I haven't said yes."

Ripper stood motionless, hand held out to her, and then smiled at her. "Oh? Haven't you?"

- 4 -.

They sat in the dojo, late Monday afternoon, facing one another across the length of the mat. The westward-facing windows had been opened; sunlight streamed in, bright and warm, and they could hear the sounds of the city.

"So it went well."

"I think so. He hired me."

"He would have been foolish not to."

"You sent him video of me, he said."

Robert nodded. "Old, obviously. From the San Diego Freestyle Open, back in '71. You were eighteen and your form was-if I were not concerned about the size of your ego I might call it flawless. And you're better today."

Denice bit her lip. "Thank you."

"Truth is not a compliment. It merely exists. I've never seen anyone who moves the way you do, Denice.

Not ever. You impressme, which is not easy; I'm sure you impressed him."

"He impressed me. A lot."

Robert's features held no expression at all. "Oh?"

"It was-at first," said Denice in a swift tumble of words, "I couldn't see it. Ripper, as Secretary General. He's so different from Eddore. He was dressed in this suit you could have seen some bank vice president wearing. And his voice is sort of flat and he doesn't use it well. And he needs to work out more."

"Most do."

"But then we talked. He explains himself well. And he talked about the desire for public service, and it was one of the only times I didn't get any sense at all that he was being cynical." Denice paused. "I was very impressed."

"Being impressive is his job, Denice. It's how he got elected and part of how hekeeps getting elected.

Don't let him impress you too much. He's a decidedly fallible man, and if you work with him long enough, someday he will fail you. As Dougla.s.s likes to say, it's part of the business."

Denice nodded, looked away from Robert for a moment, and then said, "I have missed your wisdom."

Robert smiled, said gently, "Oh, my dear. There is no such thing."

"Oh?"

Robert's smile faded, and he said with as much seriousness as she had ever seen him use on any subject, "Denice, be wary of people who have answers to your problems. Those answers I have found for myself-the things that strike you as wisdom-are notyour answers, and they are only my answers today. Tomorrow I will be a different person with different needs. The world and its people are too complex for any system of beliefs to fully address their complexity. The map does not hold; it can't.

When you learn something for yourself, hold to it; but do not expect it to work for others. Sometimes it will. More often it will not."