“That’s very kind of you, but I don’t see how I could avail myself of your offer, at the moment.”

  “Not everyone on the World Council approves of the way Anita Halleck is treating you.”

  Smiling ruefully, Jordan said, “I just don’t understand what she’s afraid of. Surely she doesn’t believe this alien invasion twaddle.”

  “She’s afraid of you, Mr. Kell. She’s afraid you’re after her chair.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “That’s not the way she sees it.”

  “I’m no threat to her. I’m not interested in politics.”

  Stavenger’s smile turned skeptical. “I believe it was Pericles who said that the Athenians regarded a man who takes no interest in politics not as a harmless man, but as a useless man.”

  Jordan puffed out a breath. “You mean that I’m involved in politics whether I like it or not.”

  “You should be.”

  “The World Council is very powerful, isn’t it?”

  Nodding, Stavenger said, “And Anita is making it more powerful every year. She’s been gathering all the threads of power into her own hands ever since she became the Council’s chairwoman.”

  His face tightening into a frown, Jordan asked, “But why? Why is she doing this? How can the Council and the rest of the world’s people allow her to?”

  HISTORY LESSON

  Stavenger leaned back in his cushioned chair.

  “You’ve got to understand that the World Council has faced some tremendous problems over the past two centuries. First the global climate reached a tipping point and greenhouse floods swamped coastlines everywhere. Millions were killed. Hundreds of millions were suddenly homeless.”

  “I know,” said Jordan. “I was one of the people who worked to find new homes for the refugees, to build new cities.”

  “Wars broke out. The Middle East was devastated by nuclear strikes and counterstrikes. Biological warfare nearly depopulated the Indian subcontinent.”

  And killed Miriam, Jordan thought, feeling the stab of pain all over again. I let her come to Kashmir with me, and the bioweapons killed her.

  “People wanted safety. They wanted order. They needed new homes, new lives, new ways of earning a living.”

  And I ran away, off to New Earth, Jordan remembered. I couldn’t face living on the world that had killed my wife.

  If Stavenger saw the pain on Jordan’s face he made no sign of it. He continued, “The World Council was created to deal with those problems. National governments on Earth were more than willing to pass the responsibility on to the World Council. Selene and the other human settlements throughout the solar system were more than willing to help.”

  “Yes, I understand that,” said Jordan. “But how was Halleck able to build a virtual dictatorship out of that?”

  Looking grim, Stavenger answered, “When people are hungry, homeless, frightened, they will give up their liberties for food, for shelter, for hope.”

  “I suppose that’s right.”

  “Oh, there wasn’t any grand plan to it, no design to create an authoritarian government. Not at first. The World Council was merely coordinating international efforts to help the refugees.”

  “But?”

  “But taxes had to be raised. Safety regulations had to be put in place. And enforced. There was no takeover of political power by the World Council. But an army of safety engineers, of child care workers and psychotechnicians, of bureaucrats, set up a web of rules and enforcements that gradually assumed control over almost every aspect of the people’s lives.”

  “And froze it all in place,” Jordan muttered.

  “Technology played a part in it. With the world’s work force decimated by the floods and other climate changes, it was necessary to turn to automation. Robots took over jobs and became so good at them that soon enough robots became preferred over human workers. An enormous social welfare system arose: the retirement age was relentlessly lowered. People became dependent on their governments for their pensions, their livelihoods.”

  “All around the world.”

  “All around the world,” Stavenger echoed. “We in Selene and some of the other off-world settlements tried to point out that the World Council’s system wouldn’t work, not in the long run, but nobody on Earth would listen to us. Things were getting better. Thanks to space resources and industries, the global economy actually started growing again.”

  “Population certainly grew,” Jordan said.

  “Yes. And the bigger the population, the more need for control: safety regulations, security controls, economic management.”

  “And now they’re locked into the system,” Jordan said.

  “The World Council’s first priority became to protect the people. And to protect them, it was necessary to watch over them constantly. To eliminate crime, it was necessary to monitor people, to catch the malcontents and mentally unsound before they could harm society.”

  Jordan simply shook his head. “There’s a dead end up ahead, isn’t there?”

  “Not necessarily. Not as long as new crises can be found. The Greenland meltdown is a godsend for Halleck. A new crisis that threatens the climate of Western Europe.”

  “Then why doesn’t she see the death wave as a crisis?”

  “Because it’s two thousand years in the future. An eternity.”

  “Not for those other worlds.”

  “They’re not real, not to Halleck or most of the Council. Not to the vast majority of Earth’s people.”

  Jordan fell silent for several moments, thinking hard. At last he looked back at Stavenger and said, “Then I’ll have to make it real.”

  His smile breaking out again, Stavenger said, “Yes, I think you will. And to accomplish that, you’ll have to get yourself elected to the World Council.”

  “Me? The World Council…”

  “The Council needs your voice, Jordan. You could be the nucleus of a new movement, a counter to Halleck’s drive to be empress.”

  ESCAPE

  Jordan couldn’t sleep after his talk with Stavenger. Get myself elected to the World Council, he thought. Challenge Halleck directly. Become a politician.

  He shook his head. How strange the world is. Halleck’s actions are forcing me to take the one course that she wants me to avoid most of all.

  For every action, he thought, remembering Newton’s law, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

  Glancing at the window, he saw that dawn was starting to brighten the sky. Briefly he thought about taking a walk outside. Through the room’s curtained window he could see a nearly full Moon grinning lopsidedly as it settled toward the hilly horizon.

  No, he decided. The less I’m outside the less chance for a surveillance satellite to spot me. Even in the dark of night, he had the eerie feeling that they were watching for him.

  I’m getting just as paranoid as Paul, he told himself. But then he repeated the old dictum: Even paranoids have enemies.

  According to Longyear, the tribal council had complained to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs about drones flitting across the reservation. The government officials claimed they had not authorized any drone flights, but the FAA confirmed that several drones had indeed penetrated the reservation’s airspace.

  Halleck’s World Council at work, Jordan knew. The matter was being discussed by U.S. Department of State officials and World Council bureaucrats. In the meantime, Jordan stayed indoors as much as possible.

  Suddenly Aditi’s lovely face took form in the holographic viewer, smiling at him.

  “Hello, Jordan dearest.”

  “Aditi! You’re up early. Or have you been up all night?”

  “It’s almost lunchtime here in Barcelona,” she said. With a dimpled grin she added, “Dr. Frankenheimer expects me in his laboratory in an hour or so.”

  “How are you, darling?” Jordan asked. And for the next half hour he was lost in the joy of talking with her.

  After a while, Aditi told him, “I think Dr. Frankenheimer is using me as a check on the information our technicians are giving to his technicians. He wants to be able to build a copy of my communicator by himself, without waiting for the technicians to learn how to do it.”

  “He’s looking for a Nobel Prize,” Jordan muttered, wondering in the back of his mind if this link Adri had set up for them was really safe from tracing.

  Aditi didn’t seem to have any such worries. “And you, Jordan, how did your talk with Mr. Stavenger go?”

  “He wants me to run for election to the World Council.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Of course! That way you could fight Halleck openly.”

  “I’m not sure that I’m cut out to be a politician.”

  “Of course you are,” Aditi insisted. “You’ll make a wonderful councilman.”

  He sighed. “I wish we were together.”

  “So do I, dearest,” said Aditi. “So do I.”

  Glancing around the small, snug bedroom, Jordan said, “I’m waiting for Youngeagle to set up a meeting with the head of the Otero Network. Still staying indoors as much as possible.”

  “But the World Council can’t take you away against your will,” she said.

  With a rueful smile, Jordan said, “And they can’t keep you in custody, either. But they’re doing it.”

  “I don’t mind that. Working with Dr. Frankenheimer is interesting.” Then Aditi added, “But I miss you.”

  Jordan nodded. “It’s lonely without you, darling.”

  “Lonely.”

  Trying to smile, he said, “Well, if everything works out right, we’ll be together again—sooner or later.”

  Aditi said, “Sooner.” But Jordan saw the doubt in her eyes.

  “I’ll get you,” he promised. “No matter where you are, I’ll come to you.”

  “Yes,” she answered, with a smile that warmed his heart.

  * * *

  The Sun was just climbing over the rim of the distant hills as Paul Longyear and his uncle Twelvetoes huddled with Jordan in the living room of Longyear’s parents’ house.

  Lester Youngeagle was there, too, practically quivering with the news that he had contacted the Otero Network and Carlos Otero himself was flying to St. Louis to meet Jordan.

  But first they had to smuggle Jordan out of the reservation and to the airport at Bismarck.

  “There’ll be six pickups altogether,” Longyear was saying, rehearsing the plan for spiriting Jordan off the reservation. “They should be arriving in ten, fifteen minutes.”

  “Five plus mine,” said Twelvetoes.

  “Each of the five other trucks will have at least two men in them. They’ll all come in here—”

  “It’ll be crowded,” Twelvetoes said.

  Casting a glowering eye at his uncle, Longyear continued, “Then we all go out. I’ve got an extra hat I’ll loan you, so the satellites won’t be able to see your face.”

  “We’ll all be wearing hats,” Twelvetoes said. “To the satellites we’ll look like an old-fashioned posse.”

  Longyear resumed, “Jordan, you come with Uncle and me. The others all drive to five different reservation gates. That’ll give the satellite monitors plenty to look at.”

  “And where do we go?” Jordan asked.

  “The reservation offices. They’ve got a covered parking garage. You get out there, wait about an hour, and then an official reservation school bus will pick you up.”

  “Won’t that be rather conspicuous?” Jordan asked.

  “Hide in plain sight,” said Twelvetoes.

  “The bus goes every morning from the reservation offices to four different schools,” Longyear explained. “While you’re riding around, I’ll drive my own car to the last school on your route. You’ll transfer to my car and I’ll drive you off the reservation, to the airport and your meeting with this news media head man.”

  “Carlos Otero,” Youngeagle reminded him.

  Jordan nodded. The plan sounded like it could work. Keep me out of the satellite cameras’ view, he told himself, while giving the satellite monitors plenty to look at.

  Still, the thought of spending more than an hour in a bus full of spirited schoolchildren sounded less than appealing to him.

  * * *

  The school bus turned out to be noisy, but fun. Jordan felt a little self-conscious in the black wide-brimmed hat Longyear had given him, as if the hat were wearing him, rather than vice versa. He sat up front, just behind the driver—a stolid, corpulent Native American woman wearing a windbreaker despite the bright warm weather. He used the driver’s microphone to talk to the kids about the stars.

  Their ages ran from kindergarten to sixth grade, and this was the one day of the week when they had to show up in their classrooms and interact with their live teachers. The other days they worked at home and communicated digitally.

  Jordan found them to be lively, bright, and intensely interested in what he had to tell them. Practically every one of them put away their digital readers and game players to shower questions on the star traveler. As he talked about his experiences on New Earth, he wondered how such curious children could metamorphose into sullen, uncommunicative teenagers. Is it hormones? he asked himself. Or does the educational system somehow beat the curiosity out of them?

  “So who knows how far the star Sirius is from Earth?” Jordan asked.

  “A gazillion kilometers,” said a grinning first-grader.

  More seriously, an older girl answered, “Eight point six light-years.”

  “Very good,” Jordan said. “And how many kilometers are there in a light-year?”

  By the time they reached the last school on the bus’s route, Jordan was happy but nearly exhausted. How do teachers put up with all this energy and curiosity? he asked himself.

  Longyear was waiting in a sleek, bright blue sports car, and whisked Jordan off the reservation to the airport at Bismarck. Jordan gave the hat back to Longyear and thanked him for his help.

  “I don’t know what I would have done without you, Paul.”

  Breaking into a rare grin, Longyear answered, “When you get the missions to those other worlds started, make sure I get a slot on one of them.”

  “I will.”

  Once they reached the airport they embraced like brothers, and then Jordan hurried into the terminal to catch the flight to St. Louis, trying not to look over his shoulder for World Council agents sent to bring him back to Barcelona.

  At St. Louis’s Lindbergh Airport, a pair of corporate executives in three-piece gray suits greeted him and drove him to the terminal for private planes. They led him to a twin engine, swept-wing plane bearing on its tail the logo of Otero Network.

  Standing just inside the plane’s hatch, almost filling the space, stood Carlos Otero, a beaming smile on his dark, mustachioed face.

  “Jordan Kell,” Otero said, extending both hands as Jordan hustled up the stairs to him. “You don’t know how happy I am to meet you.”

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, sir,” said Jordan, accepting a vigorous pumping of his arm.

  Leading Jordan down the aisle of the plushly outfitted jet, Otero gestured to a tiny, almost doll-like young woman standing before the built-in bar.

  “Vera Griffin,” he said, a little pompously, “this is Jordan Kell, the starman.”

  “How do you do?” said Jordan, accepting her outstretched hand. She smiled and stared at him, idol worship radiating from her tawny eyes.

  “Vera’s going to be the associate producer of your interview,” Otero said.

  Jordan heard the plane’s engines begin to whine softly. Electric engines, he thought. Then one of the crew closed the main hatch and the faint sound cut off entirely.

  As the plane began taxiing toward a runway, Jordan asked, “Where are we heading?”

  “Corporate headquarters,” said Otero, gesturing to the plush seats. “Boston, Massachusetts. Land of the bean and the cod. The Hub of the Universe.”

  THE HUB

  “The way to do this,” Otero was saying, “is to produce a news special about you. But we don’t announce that you’ll be making an appearance. We emphasize that you’ve disappeared, that not even the World Council knows where you are. Then, once the show begins—wham!—there you are, live.”

  The electrojet plane was winging to Boston, flying high above a smooth gray blanket of clouds. Otero was relaxed in a plush chair, a glass of tequila in one meaty hand. Vera Griffin had been sipping slowly at a tall glass of iced tea, her eyes never leaving Jordan, who had accepted a glass of grapefruit juice from the uniformed flight attendant who served as bartender.

  Otero had then dismissed the flight attendant and they began to make plans for the special show and Jordan’s unannounced appearance.

  Leaning earnestly toward Otero, across the aisle from his own seat, Jordan said, “I want Halleck to release my wife. She’s being held—”

  “I know, I know,” Otero said impatiently. “From what my snoops tell me, your wife is cooperating with the scientists in Barcelona.”

  “She can still cooperate without being imprisoned,” Jordan grumbled.

  Jabbing a finger at him, Griffin said excitedly, “That’s what we want on the show! That kind of indignation. Get the viewers sore at the Powers That Be.”

  Otero nodded happily.

  “All right,” Jordan agreed. “But let’s remember that the prime reason for this appearance is to tell the public about the death wave and the other worlds that are in imminent danger from it. Worlds we’ve got to help.”

  Otero’s swarthy face grew somber. “One thing you’ve got to realize, Jordan, is that telling people something is nowhere near as impressive as showing it to them.”

  “Yes,” Griffin agreed. “We don’t want this show to be a bunch of talking heads. We need visuals.”

  “Visuals—from worlds that are light-years away?”

  Otero waved a meaty hand. “Oh, I suppose we could ’gin up some very realistic-looking animation. Computer graphics. That sort of thing.”

  “We’ve got to give the audience something to look at,” Griffin emphasized.

  “Something they’ve never seen before,” Otero added.