A World Between by Norman Spinrad Page B

followed the general drift of the debate on the delegation’s instructions on his office net console with half an eye while he prepared the basic press release and the backup media line, and it seemed to him the the Delegates were now just repeating themselves endlessly. The three basic positions had coalesced during the first hour, and what had been going on for the past two hours was just so much redundant hot air.
    Perhaps a third of the Delegates who had spoken were, like Maravitch, entranced by the reputed scientific wares of Transcendental Science. Who wouldn’t want to live for centuries, be able to transmit matter instantaneously, regenerate damaged organs, and all the rest of it? This proInstitute faction had a strong argument, and blithely assumed that Pacifican society was inherently strong enough to resist becoming a de facto satrapy of Transcendental Science.
    Another large faction was obsessed with the Pink and Blue War, even though there was no Femocrat factor in the current political equation. These Delegates equated a Pacifican Institute of Transcendental Science with inevitable involvement in the conflict, and stood foursquare for telling Falkenstein to remove his unwholesome presence from the Pacifican solar system. Strangely enough, many of them were male. It seemed to Royce that what they really feared was not the presence of an Institute of Transcendental Science, but the Femocrat response they assumed it would bring, as if they doubted the ability of Pacifican , manhood to maintain its position of equality in the face of a Femocrat onslaught. This smelled unwholesomely unbucko to Royce, and, in a curious way, a slur against Pacifican women, too. Nevertheless, the political reality was that these Delegates were going to vote the way Carlotta wanted. Sometimes politics made rather effete bedfellows.
    The rest of the Delegates, the swing vote, were caught in the middle. They wanted what Transcendental Science had to offer, but they feared involvement in the Pink and Blue War. It seemed to Royce that this group basically wanted Transcendental Science without the Transcendental Scientists, and simply didn’t want to believe that such a thing was impossible.
    It also seemed to him that everyone was missing the real point, the line that the media campaign he had already Set in motion was going to take...
    “.... planet that refuses to ride the leading edge of scientific advance must inevitably become a backwater of inbred nostalgic...”
    On and on went the debate, to no purpose that Royce could comprehend. Thus far, Carlotta had confined herself to chairing the session, and hadn’t spoken out on the issue at all, when a strong statement from the Chairman would probably have swung the vote her way, and almost certainly would have done the trick if she made it a vote of confidence in herself. Was she simply letting them wear themselves down —or did she want to avoid taking a per - sonal stand entirely?
    Could that be it? Royce wondered. Does she want to conceal her own position so as to strengthen her hand in the forthcoming negotiations?
    Royce caught Carlotta’s eye and cocked his head slightly in a subtle gesture that only she would recognize. Carlotta returned the same signal, glanced down at her Delegate board, then looked directly into his eyes for a long moment.
    So that’s it, he thought. She wants me to do it. Uneasily, Royce pressed his request button, asking for the floor. It wouldn’t be the first time he had fronted for Carlotta this way, nor would it be the first time he had supported a policy of hers with which he was not in total agreement. But he wondered if what he was going to say would be quite the words she wanted to put into his mouth...
    “The Chair recognizes the Minister of Media...
    Royce felt the attention of the Delegates focus on him with greater-than-usual intensity. The Minister of Media was ordinarily the second most influential figure in the gov, even when he was not