Free Politician by Piers Anthony Page B

person, politically, in the society of Jupiter who was not already committed to some other program. If I wished to enter politics with some chance of success, here was the advice that would be most useful. So I had been assured by an outfit in a position to know. It was indeed my intent to pursue a political career.
    The fact that Megan was the one woman remaining in the Solar System whom I could love was secondary—or so I told myself. After all, I had known of Megan's existence for fifteen years and only now was following it up. But I can't honestly assess my own emotions; my talent is assessing the natures of others, not myself. This is part of the reason I need Spirit with me. She backstops me, she understands me. She is my hidden strength in ways that others need not understand. Without Spirit I am so far diminished as to be hardly worthwhile, and perhaps it is best that others not appreciate that. The symbolism in our names is to an extent valid: I have the aspirations, the hope, while she has the courage, the spirit.
    I put in a call to a code I had memorized. The letter Q appeared on the screen. “This is Hope Hubris,” I said.
    I should say something about the entity I called. The Q stands for QYV, pronounced “Kife,” a secret organization I encountered first through Helse. She was a courier; that is, a person who carried something for QYV. She had those letters tattooed on her body at an intimate site. I lost Helse; technically I killed her. Speculation on that is futile; I did what I did and cannot now undo it, however much I wish I could.
    The point is, all I was able to retain of her was the key she carried for Kife, and finally I traded that key for a way out of a serious situation in the Navy. Part of that deal was Megan.
    In a moment the screen lighted with a silent schematic of what I recognized as our own Pineleaf apartment complex, with one apartment briefly highlighted. Then it faded out, and the connection broke.
    I looked at Spirit. “Here?”
    “Are you surprised?”
    “Yes. I thought they'd just arrange to print out the data—”
    “She's a woman, Hope.”
    I laughed. “She's interested in my career, not my body!”
    “So am I.”
    That gave me pause. Spirit was my closest relative, companion, and friend. Had she not been my sister I might have married her. There was nothing about each other that we did not know—as well as we cared to. She understood me perhaps better than I understood myself, in part because she was able to view me not only from the affinity of blood and culture and experience, but also from the vantage of the opposite sex. Even as children, when I had been the protector of our older sister Faith, Spirit had been my protector. There was little I would not do for her—and nothing she would not do for me. She never opposed me, but she was still my guardian, in more than the physical sense. If she likened the woman of QYV, Reba, to herself, she surely had reason.
    It is true that I have a way with women. I believe it derives in part from my talent, for women do crave understanding, and in part from my own great need and hunger for them. There is not a woman I wouldn't take were she willing and the circumstances right. But, of course, circumstances are seldom right; the constraints of society are pervasive and powerful. Yet I had never thought of Reba in that way before. She was, after all, about fifty years old, no impulsive young thing.
    “But it is to locate Megan that I need Kife,” I said.
    “You haven't located her yet.”
    Therefore I was not yet committed. I saw the point. I had shared intimacies with a woman a week in the Navy; it wasn't as if I had any diffidence about sex. Still, I seemed to be developing it. “I don't suppose you'd care to accompany me?”
    Spirit just looked at me: answer enough. She supported me ultimately, which meant she had to absent herself from certain key occasions. Once I located Megan, I would not be dealing with any other woman on