Rog looked at me. “Seems to me you’ve done all right so far.”
I tried to change my voice, tried to gain control of the situation. “Rog, you’re upset. When you’ve calmed down you will see how ridiculous this is. You’re right; the show goes on. But not that way. The proper thing to do-the only thing to do-is for you yourself to move on up. The election is won; you’ve got your majority-now you take office and carry out the program.”
He looked at me and shook his head sadly. “I would if I could. I admit it. But I can’t. Chief, you remember those confounded executive committee meetings? You kept them in line. The whole coalition has been kept glued together by the personal force and leadership of one man. If you don’t follow through now, all that he lived for-and died for-will fall apart.”
I had no answering argument; he might be right-I had seen the wheels within wheels of politics in the past month and a half. “Rog, even if what you say is true, the solution you offer is impossible. We’ve barely managed to keep up this pretense by letting me be seen only under carefully stage-managed conditions-and we’ve just missed being caught out as it is. But to make it work week after week, month after month, even year after year, if I understand you-no, it couldn’t be done. It is impossible. I can’t do it!”
“You can!” He leaned toward me and said forcefully, “We’ve all talked it over and we know the hazards as well as you do. But you’ll have a chance to grow into it. Two weeks in space to start with-hell, a month if you want it! You’ll study all the time-his journals, his boyhood diaries, his scrapbooks, you’ll soak yourself in them. And we’ll all help you.”
I did not answer. He went on, “Look, Chief, you’ve learned that a political personality is not onq man; it’s a team-it’s a team bound together by common purposes and common beliefs. We’ve lost our team captain and we’ve got to have another one. But the team is still there.”
Capek was out on the balcony; I had not seen him come out. I tuned to him. “Are you for this too?”
“It’s your duty,” Rog added.
Capek said slowly, “I won’t go that far. I hope you will do it. But, damnit, I won’t be your conscience. I believe in free will, frivolous as that may sound from a medical man.” He turned to Clifton. “We had better leave him alone, Rog. He knows. Now it’s up to him.”
But, although they left, I was not to be alone just yet. Dak came out. To my relief and gratitude he did not call me “Chief.”
“Hello, Dak.”
“Howdy.” He was silent for a moment, smoking and looking out at the stars. Then he turned to me. “Old son, we’ve been through some things together. I know you now, and I’ll back you with a gun, or money, or fists any time, and never ask why. If you choose to drop out now, I won’t have a word of blame and I won’t think any the less of you. You’ve done a noble best.”
“Uh, thanks, Dak.”
“One more word and I’ll smoke out. Just remember this: if you decide you can’t do it, the foul scum who brainwashed him will win. In spite of everything, they win.” He went inside.
I felt ton apart in my mind-then I gave way to sheer self-pity. It wasn’t fair! I had my own life to live. I was at the top of my powers, with my greatest professional triumphs still ahead of me. It wasn’t right to expect me to bury myself, perhaps for years, in the anonymity of another man’s role-while the public forgot me, producers and agents forgot me-would probably believe I was dead.
It wasn’t fair. It was too much to ask.
Presently I pulled out of it and for a time did not think. Mother Earth was still serene and beautiful and changeless in the sky; I wondered what the election-night, celebrations there sounded like. Mars and Jupiter and Venus were all in sight, strung like prizes along the zodiac. Ganymede I could not see, of course, nor the lonely colony out on far Pluto.