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Overview
This is the fifth in the series Bio of a Space Tyrant, featuring the stages in the life of Hope Hubris, the tyrant of Jupiter, and his beloved sister, Spirit.
Child of flame and terror, born and bred to violence, Hope Hubris had ruled the solar system’s most powerful empire with a fierce, uncompromising passion. His was a white-hot flame of justice that scarred friend and foe alike. Yet now he left Jupiter as an exile, his autocratic rule overthrown by the one person he could not oppose. Deposed, disgraced, but forever unbroken, the tyrant’s greatest hour was still to come. For only he could shoulder the burden of humanity’s boldest dream: to leave behind the confines of the solar system and journey outward to the stars.
The epic of Hope Hubris comes to a blazing climax!
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781497658325 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 07/01/2014 |
| Series: | Bio of a Space Tyrant , #5 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 368 |
| Sales rank: | 759,303 |
| File size: | 5 MB |
About the Author
Piers Anthony is one of the world’s most popular fantasy writers, and a New York Times–bestselling author twenty-one times over. His Xanth novels have been read and loved by millions of readers around the world, and he daily receives letters from his devoted fans. In addition to the Xanth series, Anthony is the author of many other bestselling works. He lives in Inverness, Florida.
Read an Excerpt
Statesman
Bio of a Space Tyrant, Volume Five
By Piers Anthony
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1986 Piers AnthonyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5832-5
CHAPTER 1
PIRATE
We might as well have been children again, though I was sixty-one and my sister Spirit was fifty-eight. We faced the presentation screen and gawked at the magnificence of Planet Saturn. The rings were spectacular. Of course the image was enhanced by false color, making it more dramatic, but still it was a wonder. All the colors of the spectrum seemed to be there in the great splay of the rings, and in the roughly spherical body of the planet itself. "Beautiful!" I breathed. "Jupiter's rings hardly compare!"
Spirit murmured agreement. "But nevertheless a sterner environment than we knew on Jupiter," she reminded me. "Their residential band has about eight and a half bars pressure, and their winds are up to quadruple Jupiter's—almost five hundred meters a second."
"A thousand miles an hour," I agreed, making a rough translation in my head. In my time on Jupiter I had become accustomed to the archaic Saxon measurements, inefficient as they were. Of course such velocities were not directly experienced, because the city-bubbles floated in the wind currents. Survival would be impossible if relative wind velocity of that strength were felt; storms whose winds were only a tenth as strong had been called hurricanes back on ancient Earth, and had wreaked enormous damage. The pressure bothered me more; as a former native of space, I tended to feel claustrophobic in pressure higher than one bar, the normal atmospheric level we live in. It had been six bars on Jupiter, and would be higher on Saturn even though the planet was smaller, because the residential band was deeper in the atmosphere.
We were on our way to Saturn because we had been exiled from Jupiter, and the ringed planet seemed to be the best prospect of those that had expressed interest in taking us. I had just one personal acquaintance at Saturn—but that one was Chairman Khukov, the highest political figure there. He had achieved his dominance at about the time I became the Tyrant of Jupiter, and we had worked tacitly together to buttress each other's power and defuse interplanetary tension. I did not really like Khukov, but I trusted him.
"Ship ahoy," the ship's intercom announced. "Passengers to quarters."
I exchanged a glance with Spirit. We were in deep space between planets; our trip had not been announced, because the new government of Jupiter wished us no ill but wanted us out of the public eye. We cooperated because my wife Megan headed that new government, and I bore her no ill will. She had done what she felt she had to do, and I cannot say she was mistaken. The Tyrancy had accomplished a lot of good, but had also become increasingly arbitrary about the uses of power. Power does seem to corrupt the conscience, much as alcohol corrupts judgment; from the vantage of my abrupt loss of power I was able to see how far I had been straying. But because I was who I was, I was a target, which was another reason for the secrecy of this transportation. Was the other ship merely a passing merchant, or was it something else?
We retreated quickly to our quarters, obeying the authority of this ship. This was a Saturn vessel, of the escort class, displacing (as the usage still had it) about two thousand tons. She should be fast, capable of about three gees acceleration, but only lightly armed. It was her purpose to transport us swiftly and quietly to Saturn; she would be in trouble if attacked. We snapped into our acceleration harnesses.
"Ship under attack," the intercom voice said, as if responding to my thought. "Secure—"
The voice was cut off by the impact of a strike. The ship shook, and the power blinked. We were not under acceleration at the moment; the normal course is to achieve cruising velocity, then coast to the destination, conserving fuel. The vessel was spinning to provide half gee in that interim.
"Better take evasive action," Spirit muttered. She and I had been career officers in space for twelve to fifteen years; that was three decades past, but the reflexes are never lost.
The ship did not. It drifted along on its original course, not cutting in the drive.
We got out of our harnesses, acting as one. Obviously the ship's captain was a noncombatant, uncertain what to do in battle. That would get us killed promptly enough. He didn't realize that the first thing to do was to put the ship under acceleration, regardless of its course.
We burst into the control chamber. "Get it moving!" I barked in Russian.
"But the damage report is not yet in," the pilot protested. He was young, obviously inexperienced: the kind normally used on what is called a milk run, a routine mission. "The captain has not—"
I reached down and took his laser pistol from his body. I gave it to Spirit. "Get out of that seat," I said. I didn't have time to educate him in battle procedure.
"But you are passengers!" he said. "Not even of Saturn—" Then he turned his head and spied the laser bearing on his right eye. He got out of the seat.
I jumped into it. The ship's controls were unfamiliar in detail, but I understood the principle well enough in a moment I had the drive started.
Meanwhile, Spirit was marching the pilot out of the chamber. I knew where she was headed. I spoke into the intercom. "Captain, I am assuming temporary command of this vessel," I said in Russian. "Acknowledge, and relay the directive to your crew."
"This is impossible!" the captain sputtered.
"Captain, we don't have time for debate. I am taking evasive action, but very soon the pirate will reorient and tag us with another shell. We have to fight effectively, and for that I require your implicit cooperation." I guided the craft on a random course, getting the hang of the controls in the processes. This was a good little ship, I realized, capable of more acceleration than I had judged. I verified that she had not suffered any critical damage; she was responding perfectly. We had been lucky, so far.
"This is piracy right here!" he huffed. "I will not—"
"Captain, do you know who I am?" I cut in.
"No, they did not inform—"
"I am the Tyrant of Jupiter, deposed."
He made a gasp of surprise. Then Spirit's voice came: "Chamber secured, sir. Orders?"
I had of course been distracting the inexperienced captain while Spirit made her way to his office. Now she had her pistol on him. She could not speak Russian, but the weapon was surely persuasive enough.
"Captain," I repeated. "I am assuming command. I do this because of the need to save this ship from destruction by the pirate, and will return control to you when the crisis abates. Acknowledge."
This time there was a laser pointed at his eye. "Acknowledged," the captain said.
"Direct your crew."
He obeyed, ordering the crew to obey my orders. I had taken over the ship illegally, but the authority was mine for the duration.
"Observation," I said, addressing the officer I knew would be present. "What is the nature of the enemy?"
"Destroyer-class vessel, sir," he answered promptly. "Now showing pirate colors."
That meant that the attempt to communicate with the ship had resulted in a skull-and-crossbones picture on the screen, the universal signal of piracy. The fact that it was of the destroyer class told me all I needed to know about its capabilities, which was why the observation officer had not said more. He was obviously experienced, perhaps retired to this ship after long service.
"Armament," I said. "What are our resources?"
"Five cases stungas grenades, sir," he said. "Hand weapons, laser."
It was my turn to be stunned. "Hand weapons? What of the space cannon?"
"Dismantled, sir, in favor of the drive. This is not a combat vessel."
Obviously not! "Propulsion," I said. "What is our maximum acceleration?"
"Five point two gee, sir."
"Five point ...!" I exclaimed. The fastest ship in my fleet in the old days had been the destroyer The Discovered Check, upgraded to a capacity of 4.5 gee. This little escort ship supposedly could leave that ship rapidly behind. Perhaps they had figured to outrun any trouble along the way.
But no ship could outrun shells or drones, let alone lasers. The pirate had gotten too close, and now it was way too late to flee. But we couldn't fight either—not with hand grenades.
"Spirit," I said.
"Have to try chicken," she said in Spanish. If any of the Saturn personnel knew that language, they might still miss the implication. That was the intent. If they caught on, there would be a counterrevolution aboard ship.
Chicken. When two foolish kids got into transport bubbles and headed straight for each other. Collision course—and the first to swerve was "chicken." The game had been played in one form or another for centuries, and had accounted for its share of injuries and deaths.
I nodded. The pirate was matching our velocity, or trying to, so as to have a steady target for another shot. It had made no effort to communicate; there had been no demand for surrender. It simply intended to hole us; then its personnel would board in space suits and take the spoils. It was the way of the more vicious pirates, and it was evident that they had not been rousted out of this region of space. But they were bold indeed to tackle a marked Saturn ship; that would bring a fleet out to extirpate every pirate ship.
I oriented the ship, then jammed up the drive. Suddenly we were accelerating, in the relative framework of the two moving ships, toward the pirate.
It took a moment for the pirate to realize what was happening, for this was completely unexpected. It was like a wounded rabbit charging the pursuing hound.
The pirate reacted by firing another shell at us. That was an error; we now presented a minimal target, end-on, and were accelerating; there was little space or time for this. The pirate had to move in a hurry or be rammed. That would likely destroy both ships.
Now our own crewmen were catching on. "Suicide!" someone screamed in Russian on the intercom.
"It is chicken," I said in Russian. "But we have less to lose than they do."
"All will die!" the voice cried.
"Armament," I said.
"Sir," the experienced officer replied immediately.
"Can you launch the lifeboat by remote control?"
"Yes, sir."
"In the manner of a torpedo?"
Now he caught on to my new ploy. "The window is very narrow, sir."
"The lifeboat!" another voice exclaimed. "Without that, we die!"
"Silence," the captain snapped. He had evidently come to terms with his demotion and was enforcing discipline under the new order.
"Watch the pirate," I said to the armament officer. "Judge the direction he moves. Assume he will accelerate at his maximum. Plot the course to intercept that escape path. I will proceed straight, accelerating at three gee till launch."
"Understood, sir."
We closed rapidly as I brought the gee up to three. That tripled the weight of every person on the ship; even in acceleration harness, that isn't comfortable. But if this ship was built to do five gee, the personnel had to have been trained for it. I was the weak link here; I wasn't sure I could handle more than three gee at my age and condition, at least not for long.
The pirate ship moved out of the way. It was indeed chicken. It had double our mass and at least double our personnel, and it could destroy us in any ordinary encounter. Thus it had much more to lose than we did. I had never doubted it would avoid the collision; the only question was when it would start its maneuver. Because it had foolishly tried to shoot us down, it had lost valuable time; now it had no chance to reorient. That meant that its path was predictable. If that Saturnian officer was worth his salt—
We closed. The pirate was in motion, but barely in time. Our lifeboat launched. Then we shot past the pirate's tail section—and the lifeboat rammed it.
We watched it in the screen as I cut our acceleration. Vapor shot out of the pirate's side. She had been holed by our missile. A cheer went up on the intercom.
I rotated our ship in place and resumed thrust. This had the effect of decelerating us, relative to the other ship. There was no rush now; I held it at one gee. "Captain," I said.
"Sir?"
"My mission has been accomplished. I am returning command to you." And I knew that Spirit was putting away the laser pistol.
"Thank you, Tyrant," he said, with only a trace of irony.
"But if I may make a suggestion, sir?" I continued.
"Speak."
"We should take the pirate's lifeboat—and perhaps make an investigation of the ship to determine its identity. The men might also wish to salvage artifacts."
He hesitated. Military vessels were not supposed to take spoils, but the temptation could be great in a situation like this. "Tyrant," he said after a moment. "There will an investigation into your actions, of course. But I believe they will establish the validity of your position. In the interim, would you accede to commanding the investigation party?"
So that any spoils taken would be my responsibility, not his. He was canny enough! He knew that no Saturn court-martial would convict the Tyrant of Jupiter—not when Saturn had invited that Tyrant to accept sanctuary there. I was sure that the entire Saturn Navy knew the political situation; this ship simply had not been advised that it was the one with the Tyrant actually aboard. Perhaps its crew did not know about the Tyrant's change of status, after all. In fact, this entire episode would probably be hushed up, and that would do the captain more good than harm.
"I shall be pleased to do that," I said graciously.
In fact, it might be best if my temporary assumption of authority were not advertised. It could not be concealed from the authorities, of course, but they would probably be willing to bury it, if I was.
I relinquished the pilot's seat to the regular pilot and set about organizing the boarding party. We had to don suits, as there would be no pressure in the holed ship. Spirit joined me. "Like old times," she murmured in Spanish.
She was right, and I discovered that I relished the feeling. I had been thirty when I left the Jupiter Navy, just half my present age, and this activity gave me the semblance of my youth. Of course I knew it was illusion, but a person can at times appreciate illusion as much as reality. Consider, for example, the feelie helmets, which facilitate all manner of vicarious experience ranging from interplanetary travel to explicit sexual encounters. I have on occasion received great satisfaction from the helmet, and now I had satisfaction from the action occurring here in space. Danger near, Spirit beside me—I wished I could kiss her, but of course that was not feasible in our suits.
We exited the lock, and a crew of ten SatNavs came with us. Among them was the armament officer, whose competence in the clutch had given us our victory. I had learned in passing that a significant portion of the crew had been rendered temporarily unfit for duty by the intensity of our brief action; this was the first combat they had experienced. That amazed me: that Saturn should provide so inadequately for such an important mission.
Or was I overrating myself? I was no longer the Tyrant; I was an exile. So perhaps this was, after all, a routine mission.
It made sense, but was a comedown. The past decade of power had perhaps spoiled me. However, I knew that I needed to adapt to the new reality. I was now a nonentity.
We used our weak suit jets to cross to the derelict. Our lifeboat had punched a hole amidships, then evidently had been thrown clear. The aim had been perfect. Now the pirate vessel rotated slowly, leaking a faint residual trace of gas, like a planet stripped, by some calamity, of most of its atmosphere.
We used the air lock for entry, rather than the jagged hole in the hull; there was no sense in risking our suits.
The interior was ugly, of course; abrupt depressurization is rough on equipment as well as on personnel, and it was evident that this ship had not been prepared for it. I marveled at that; perhaps the Saturn vessel had never had battle experience, but how could a pirate be naive about the dangers of action in space? Many items had not been properly secured; they would have moved about during free-fall, and of course had become missiles during depressurization.
We found the first body. It was a man of Mongoloid origin, his blood-spattered eyeballs bulging from their sockets, his tongue swelling from the open mouth. Two of our party turned away; it is no fun to retch in a space suit.
"Hold him," I told Spirit. She caught the man's feet, anchoring him so that he would not float away while I searched him. I checked his body for identification, and found it. I glanced at it quickly, then passed it to Spirit without comment.
She glanced and nodded. Then she put it in a utility pocket of her suit. We went on.
What we did not tell the others was that the identification showed the pirate crewman to be a citizen of the Middle Kingdom. That was what Jupiter citizens called South Saturn, historically derived from the ancient China of Earth.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Statesman by Piers Anthony. Copyright © 1986 Piers Anthony. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
EDITORIAL PROLOG,CHAPTER 1 PIRATE,
CHAPTER 2 DREAM,
CHAPTER 3 WOMAN,
CHAPTER 4 FARM,
CHAPTER 5 SMILO,
CHAPTER 6 FORTA,
CHAPTER 7 RISING SUN,
CHAPTER 8 LADY OR TIGER,
CHAPTER 9 DEMO,
CHAPTER 10 PERSUASION,
CHAPTER 11 TITANIA,
CHAPTER 12 TRITON,
CHAPTER 13 PHOBOS,
CHAPTER 14 EARTH,
CHAPTER 15 VENUS,
CHAPTER 16 MERCURY,
CHAPTER 17 RUE,
CHAPTER 18 RUE,
CHAPTER 19 MIDDLE KINGDOM,
CHAPTER 20 LAYA,
EDITORIAL EPILOG,
SOLAR GEOGRAPHY,
AUTHOR'S NOTE,
COPYRIGHT AND PERMISSIONS,
