Joe Haldeman - Worlds Enough and Time

O’HARA: Does everyone in the Cabinet know about your little… tradition?

PURCELL: Not yet. As you just said, we’ve had to draw candidates from a limited pool. Some are still being evaluated.

O’HARA: But my husbands do know.

PURCELL: And have for some time, of course. Both of them have argued your case since well before Launch. I, among others, wanted to see how well you handled that particular stress, first.

O’HARA: It’s far from being the most stressful thing that’s ever happened to me.

PURCELL: Granted. But I wasn’t there for the others.

O’Hara leans back a few degrees, which makes her look even less relaxed. She can’t hide the anger in her voice.

O’HARA: Sandra’s image couldn’t tell me how long it’s been going on, in New New. It said to ask you.

PURCELL: I’m not sure, either. One may assume we had rather more of a pure democracy in the beginning.

O’HARA: Fewer people.

PURCELL: And a select crowd. Autoselected. They all decided to live in orbit—to start life over, most of them—and most of them had a more or less passionate interest in their own governance.

The first person born in orbit, by comparison, was an unwilling immigrant. That was five generations ago.

O’HARA: So you’re saying we’ve become less competent to govern ourselves? As individuals? Or is it just greater numbers, watering down the democratic process.

PURCELL: Both. Out of New New’s eighty-one-thousand potential voters, ten or fifteen thousand—conservatively!—weren’t competent to make decisions regarding even their own welfare, let alone the welfare of others—

O’HARA: That seems awfully high.

PURCELL: And perhaps twice that number were either uninterested or so contemptuous of government that they had no positive input into the process.

You think that’s high, too, but it’s not. Together those percentages would say, well, more than half of New New is made up of intelligent, responsible voters. That wasn’t true before the war and it’s less true now.

I know Sandra told you about the plague referendum.

O’HARA: Yes. It’s… terrible.

PURCELL: You would have said “unbelievable” if it had been I who told you. The message was Sandra’s idea. I think she knew you very well.

O’HARA: She did.

PURCELL: I don’t have any great love for groundhogs, either, and I understand the primitive desire to punish them. Let them stew in their own juices, die out. But I don’t vote according to what my ductless glands say. Most people do.

O’HARA: So the solution is a benign dictatorship by committee?

PURCELL: It’s not the solution; it’s not even a solution. It’s just a way of getting from today to tomorrow without too much excitement. Without disaster.

There’s no safety valve anymore. No other Worlds to emigrate to; no Earth as a last resort. We’re sealed in this can together for a century.

And it’s not a “dictatorship” just because most people are unaware of the details of the decision-making process. It’s still just management.

O’HARA: Management? What a euphemism. It’s manipulation, pure and simple. Paternalistic condescension.

PURCELL: You’re not the best judge of that at this time.

O’HARA: What do you mean by that?

PURCELL: This is a difficult situation for you. It would be for anybody, talking to me under these circumstances.

O’HARA: I can manage.

PURCELL: Your using the word “paternalistic,” for instance, is interesting in this context. You’ve read your profile.

O’HARA: Oh, come on. Because I never knew my father—

PURCELL: Now you’re the one indulging in euphemism. What you felt about him was betrayal, contempt, rage.

O’HARA: Yes, felt! I’m not a child anymore. Besides, I did finally meet him when I was twenty-one, on Earth. He was just a poor sad little man.

PURCELL: You never completely leave the child behind. I’m almost eighty-four, and I can remember terrible things that upset me before I was ten.

I’m just asking that you be honest and careful about those buried feelings. Don’t let them color your assessment of my advice.

O’HARA: I will try to control my “rage.” (Pauses) There is something in what you say. I’ll take care.

PURCELL: I want you to have this as a reminder. And a good luck charm.

He slides over the book. Two bold Chinese characters are stamped on the red leather jacket. O’Hara opens it and reads the title.

O’HARA: The Art of War , by Sun Tzu?

PURCELL: Well, it’s not just about war. It’s about using people and supplies. Management. Bluffing. The creative use and abuse of power.

Written more than two thousand years ago, but still useful.

O’HARA: Thank you. I didn’t bring any actual books. This is beautiful.

PURCELL: Very little of what it says is beautiful. It’s a tough, uncompromising book. (He stares at her.)

How many nervous breakdowns have you had?

O’HARA: None.

PURCELL: Your record—

O’HARA: I know my record. I’ve been treated for anxiety disorders. (She holds up the Chinese book.) We live in interesting times.

PURCELL: Twice these “disorders” involved physical collapse. I’d call them nervous break-downs.

O’HARA: Doctors don’t. (Purcell shrugs.) In both cases, I was back to work in a day or two. If I thought it was an impediment to public service, I would let the public get along without me.

PURCELL: I’m not suggesting that it is. As far as I can tell, your actual problem is quite unrelated to anxiety.

O’HARA: Good. Is it treatable?

PURCELL: Selfcorrecting, ultimately. It’s your god-damned superwoman complex.

O’HARA: What, you think I have too much confidence to be a good leader? That’s bizarre.

PURCELL: No, it’s the opposite of that, or the obverse: an inability, or unwillingness, to predict disaster.

O’HARA: I went through more disaster in seven months than you have seen in eighty-four years.

PURCELL: Excepting the sure prospect of one’s death, perhaps. (She starts to say something but he holds his hand up, mollifying.) That’s not fair. I’m sorry.

He drops the hand heavily to the table.

PURCELL: Most of a century involved in calculated debate. It produces reflexes. Like any sport. I have to go.

He gets to his feet with some effort, and at the door looks back with an almost avuncular smile. O’Hara has risen, stepped toward him.

PURCELL: No. Read “Maneuver,” Statement 27.

O’Hara watches him go, then looks it up.

O’HARA: “When he pretends to flee, do not pursue.”

Dear Marianne,

Things sure have been exciting around here since you left. School school and more school. And dear old Mom.

Could you talk to her? She gave you hell for putting off menarche until you were sixteen and now she’s giving me hell because I want it now. Everybody else in my class is going at it like bunnys and they treat me like a little girl. The school nurse says I wouldn’t have any trouble with the pelvis even if I did get pregnant, which would be a cold day on Mercury. But I guess they do have cold days on Mercury, its Venus where its always hot. God, astronomy! Its just algebra with stars and planets. Chemistry’s just algebra with funny smells. I still don’t know hamster dropping about algebra altho I passed course One the second time around. Now I’m in course Two and adrift between the Galaxys, as the soap says.

Not that I get to watch.any soaps. The only cube I can watch is educational, until my grades are up there with a normal subhuman. So last night I got to see this hourlong thing about how hermit crabs and termites and all fuck. You would of really liked it. Maybe you’ll meet creatures like that on your new planet, but big like elephants. When the elephant termite female reaches around and starts eating the elephant termite male (while his thing’s still in her!), don’t worry, its just romance. You might want to tell Uncle Dan about it, since you say he likes strange women. There might be real strange women on that planet. Tho he’ll probably slow down by age 100.