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Authors: Norman Spinrad
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would make them vote her way, and Royce wondered whether she might not be resenting that somehow.
“Therefore, as Minister of Media, I say that even if there were no such thing as the Pink and Blue War and no such ideology as Femocracy, Pacifica should do nothing that in any way furthers the monopolistic practices of Transcendental Science. Therefore, I hereby move that our delegation be instructed to tell Falkenstein and his people that, while we are eager to buy any knowledge he may have to sell at a fair price, any such knowledge will then become a free item of interstellar trade, and that any Pacifican Institute of Transcendental Science must be run under Pacifican law—most specifically including the media access laws. And if they choose not to abide by these conditions, they are to remove themselves from this solar system forthwith!”
Decorous but spontaneous cheering broke out. “Second the motion! Second the motion!” Dozens of Delegates were calling for the vote. Royce smiled at Carlotta smugly, knowing that he had cunningly recrafted the issue at hand into a resolution that no one could seriously argue against and hope to remain in office. Closed session or not, he thought, that was one hell of a speech, and I’m going to release the tape to the news channels—it’s perfect for our purposes.
Carlotta’s face was utterly sphinxlike as she gaveled the Delegates to order. “If there are no objections, I call for a vote on the Minister’s motion,” she said evenly.
Of course there were none, and the motion sailed through, 80 to 23. And in a move that surprised even Royce, he himself was voted onto the delegation as the majority opinion member, along with Carlotta, and Lauren Golding from the Cords for the small minority, even though he was usually considered Carlotta’s shadow.
It filled Royce with a rare sense of totally private pride to think that the Delegates had recognized his independent existence to such an extent. But on the other hand, Carlotta had been able to avoid taking any strong position at all, so as things stood now, it was he who publicly represented her position as if it were his own, and she who appeared to remain above it all, the obedient servant of a Parliamentary consensus that he had marshaled behind her. It was hard to figure out who was the puppet and who the puppeteer.
The disc of the setting-sun behind them was cleanly bisected by the razor-sharp western horizon, and the surface of the sea was a glaze of deepening gold as Carlotta Madigan sat thoughtfully in the open cockpit of the
Golden Goose watching Royce sail the boat back to Lorien. Dozing boomerbirds rode the light swell, their heads tucked peacefully into their bright yellow breast feathers. Far away to port, the translucent hump of a big jellybelly glowed eerily in the twilight.
The world seemed at peace as it edged into night, and Royce was like a little boy, thoroughly absorbed in the delicate task of extracting the maximum speed from the light following wind. Carlotta had secured the mandate she wanted from Parliament, and the unforeseen election of Royce to the delegation had even given her a welcome but unexpected effective control. The ship of state seemed to be making its way through its troubled waters almost as smoothly as the Golden Goose gliding along the surface of this tranquil sea. Yet something disturbed the peace of this moment on a deep level that she could not quite plug her conscious mind into, and the elusiveness of it made it doubly annoying.
And somehow it was focused on Royce. He had been so damned pleased with himself, so much the triumphant bucko, that there had been no way to deny him this slow, crawling surface sail back to Lorien. Surely this isn’t too much for me to endure for the sake of my bright young bucko, Carlotta thought. Especially when he’s served me as well as he has today.
But that is what’s bothering me, she suddenly realized. Not the sail, but the way Royce
“Therefore, as Minister of Media, I say that even if there were no such thing as the Pink and Blue War and no such ideology as Femocracy, Pacifica should do nothing that in any way furthers the monopolistic practices of Transcendental Science. Therefore, I hereby move that our delegation be instructed to tell Falkenstein and his people that, while we are eager to buy any knowledge he may have to sell at a fair price, any such knowledge will then become a free item of interstellar trade, and that any Pacifican Institute of Transcendental Science must be run under Pacifican law—most specifically including the media access laws. And if they choose not to abide by these conditions, they are to remove themselves from this solar system forthwith!”
Decorous but spontaneous cheering broke out. “Second the motion! Second the motion!” Dozens of Delegates were calling for the vote. Royce smiled at Carlotta smugly, knowing that he had cunningly recrafted the issue at hand into a resolution that no one could seriously argue against and hope to remain in office. Closed session or not, he thought, that was one hell of a speech, and I’m going to release the tape to the news channels—it’s perfect for our purposes.
Carlotta’s face was utterly sphinxlike as she gaveled the Delegates to order. “If there are no objections, I call for a vote on the Minister’s motion,” she said evenly.
Of course there were none, and the motion sailed through, 80 to 23. And in a move that surprised even Royce, he himself was voted onto the delegation as the majority opinion member, along with Carlotta, and Lauren Golding from the Cords for the small minority, even though he was usually considered Carlotta’s shadow.
It filled Royce with a rare sense of totally private pride to think that the Delegates had recognized his independent existence to such an extent. But on the other hand, Carlotta had been able to avoid taking any strong position at all, so as things stood now, it was he who publicly represented her position as if it were his own, and she who appeared to remain above it all, the obedient servant of a Parliamentary consensus that he had marshaled behind her. It was hard to figure out who was the puppet and who the puppeteer.
The disc of the setting-sun behind them was cleanly bisected by the razor-sharp western horizon, and the surface of the sea was a glaze of deepening gold as Carlotta Madigan sat thoughtfully in the open cockpit of the
Golden Goose watching Royce sail the boat back to Lorien. Dozing boomerbirds rode the light swell, their heads tucked peacefully into their bright yellow breast feathers. Far away to port, the translucent hump of a big jellybelly glowed eerily in the twilight.
The world seemed at peace as it edged into night, and Royce was like a little boy, thoroughly absorbed in the delicate task of extracting the maximum speed from the light following wind. Carlotta had secured the mandate she wanted from Parliament, and the unforeseen election of Royce to the delegation had even given her a welcome but unexpected effective control. The ship of state seemed to be making its way through its troubled waters almost as smoothly as the Golden Goose gliding along the surface of this tranquil sea. Yet something disturbed the peace of this moment on a deep level that she could not quite plug her conscious mind into, and the elusiveness of it made it doubly annoying.
And somehow it was focused on Royce. He had been so damned pleased with himself, so much the triumphant bucko, that there had been no way to deny him this slow, crawling surface sail back to Lorien. Surely this isn’t too much for me to endure for the sake of my bright young bucko, Carlotta thought. Especially when he’s served me as well as he has today.
But that is what’s bothering me, she suddenly realized. Not the sail, but the way Royce
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