Bid of a Space Tyrant Volume 6: The Iron Maiden by Piers Anthony

Author:Piers, Anthony
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

Chairman Khukov was a busy man, but he made time for them. Within an hour of their arrival they found themselves in his private suite. He had aged visibly, with what hair remaining to him turning off-gray, and he had put on weight.

They conversed in English, for Spirit did not speak Russian and Khukov's knowledge of Spanish was never advertised. Hope and Khukov trusted each other because each understood the other in a way no other person could.

Differences of language or culture or politics became insignificant in the face of this fundamental understanding.

"You know the origin and motivation of the attack?" Hope asked.

"The nomenklatura."

They looked blank.

180

THEIRONMAIDEN

Khukov smiled. "Brace yourselves for a small lecture on Saturnine internal politics. You know that we are theoretically a classless society, unlike you of the decadent capitalistic planets. But we have classes, and of these the most privileged is the nomenklatura, the bureaucratic stratum of the Party. Those in all the key positions of the Party, the military, and the secret police belong to this hereditary class. I belong. They pass themselves off as mere civil servants, but they are the true rulers. Our society is stultified, because the nomenklatura wants no change; it wants only perpetuation of its own power. This is your enemy--and mine. I sought to reform our system, to eradicate corruption, to make of Saturn a truly superior power." He shook his head. "The task was more difficult than I had suspected."

"Infinitely," Hope agreed ruefully. It seemed that the nomenklatura wanted to stop the reform, and knew that Hope might be an instrument of reform. Khukov, it turned out, had a dream: The unification of the species in harmony.

"An excellent dream," Hope agreed wryly. "But difficult to implement."

He waggled a finger at them. "A dream without substance is worthless. I have a mechanism, if it can be implemented.

Do you remember how the society of ancient Earth was ready to explode, to destroy itself by internecine warfare, until the onset of the gee-shield?"

"That gave man the Solar System," Hope agreed. "The pent-up energies were released positively by the expansion into the new frontier, rather than turning destructively upon themselves."

"And now that frontier has been conquered, and the energies are turning destructive again, exactly as before. But with a new frontier--"

"To divert man's destructive energies," Hope said, beginning to visualize the dream.

"And provide man a common challenge," Spirit added. "But what could that frontier be?"

Khukov made an expansive gesture. "What else? The galaxy."

"But the gee-shield can hardly do that," Hope said. "Gravity is not much of a problem in interstellar space, so shielding it doesn't make much difference. For that kind of travel, we need sustained thrust that could take us up toward light speed, and even CT drive isn't enough. Even so, it would take a decade or so just to reach the nearest star--where there might not be anything worthwhile for colonization anyway. It's not enough just to get there; there have to be resources to exploit. Just the problem of growing new bubbles to house increasing population--that requires planets like Jupiter and Saturn.

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