As to Feng Miranda, Manyface had no opinions worth mentioning. She was too silly and childish to require much thought, he decided. That was rather a big mistake.
Miranda was no longer a prisoner. The conceptual bar that had kept the Yanks from understanding that a genetic Han Chinese could still be a patriotic U.S. American had dissolved in the war room. Yes, Miranda was clearly as loyal as Jupe himself or even the Governor.
Delilah was no longer a prisoner, either, though the reasons were not at all the same. It was not that she was trusted. It was simply that there was obviously nothing in her power to do that could do the Yanks any harm. She was not allowed near the war room or the Space Center, and if she had gone violently ragingly hostile in some nest or farm settlement, what difference would it have made?
Castor, of course, had never been a prisoner. That, thought Manyface, was perhaps an error on the part of the erks and the Yanks, for the boy simply was not mature enough to have solid political opinions. It pumped up his ego to be called President, of course. But it pumped up his ego almost as much to have the bitches in heat sniff after him, and he got very much of that every day—to Delilah's conspicuous disgust.
The really surprising thing (thought Manyface) was that he himself was not imprisoned. No one was. The assault team had been politely dispersed to five other cities for "debriefing and discussion"—not that those trigger-happy hit men had anything to discuss with anyone! Once there, they roamed as freely as any... and they, too, were having a truly fine time with World's sisters. Even Tchai Howard was not behind bars—though, as was the case with Manyface himself, he was followed everywhere by erks at least, often by sisters with multiple motives for curiosity.
But those erks and Yanks were not actually guards. Manyface was sure of that. They didn't consider Many-face an enemy. He knew what the smart erks thought of him: they thought him a truly fascinating laboratory preparation ... as indeed he had been on Earth, for that matter.
As on Earth, even more on World. The Living Gods had taken a great interest in biological matters—the development of the erks themselves proved that—but the concept of transplanting parts of one brain into another, it seemed, had never occurred to them.
It took some time for Manyface to understand what it meant to the erks to be in the presence of a kind of technology the Living Gods had never thought of. It almost made Manyface himself honorarily divine.
If the erks were fascinated by Manyface, Manyface was fascinated in turn by the erks...and their Living Gods... and their world... and their history ... and especially by their planetary houseguests, the Yankees. For a time the sheer intellectual joy of discovery was enough for Manyface. Was almost enough for Manyface. Learning was a special experience for Manyface, because what he learned he learned eleven times over. Each of his sub-brains had his own special interests and his own expertise. Potter-the-agronomist was fascinated by erk farm practices. Corelli-the-anthropologist delighted in erk and Yank social customs. Angorak-the-soldier thrilled to erk and Yank weaponry and drill. Dien-the-engineer thrilled to the marvelous Living God construction. And Hsang-the-psychologist—
Ah, Hsang-the-psychologist! For him the Yanks were not merely a puzzle. They were a threat to his most basic beliefs.
It happened that those beliefs were illicit, but that did not make them less strongly felt. As in most Socialist countries, the Han Chinese had early on repudiated the foul-smelling and antipeople ravings of that degenerate toady to the bosses, Sigmund Freud. The sexual interpretation of dreams was not merely heretical in China. It was punishable by law.
As in most Socialist countries, however, the psychologists of Han China found ways of making eclectic use of forbidden therapies. Now and then, into their behavior-modification therapy they managed to sneak a Freudian diagnosis. Did the patient have a fascination with eating bananas, carrots, and juicy red sausages? Ah, to be sure, Comrade, to your work and study regimen we will recommend adding some cold showers.
And when Hsang-the-psychologist saw how the Yankees lived, he saw, too, that—for the first time in two centuries—the work of Sigmund Freud was not merely heretical. It was irrelevant.
There were no vast, punitive father figures in the minds of the Yankees on World.
There were no fathers.
So Hsang babbled endlessly to his skullmates. What nonsense this made of Freud's theories!—no, not nonsense, they were known to be a bourgeois illusion. Still, on Earth they had—ah, that was, they had been thought to have—some limited, tenuous reality—The others shut him up, because they had their own babbling to do; but then Hsang burst forth again. He was more secure now, having reflected that there was, after all, no way the Han Chinese state could effectively discipline heterodox psychology under the very special circumstances now existing. The father was gone! He did not exist! The son need not wither under the larger shadow! And as to penis envy, why, with women outnumbering men by, what was it, some 180 to 1, there were not enough penises around to make a good fantasy-envy!
And then Su Wonmu, the nonspecialist, the humble soul—Su said gently, "It is interesting, Hsang, that you are interested in the shape of their psyches and interesting, Dien, that you admire their grasp of structural techniques ... but is it not time that we, all eleven of us, devote our collective minds to making a plan? A plan, let us say, to keep these erks and Yankees from wiping out everything we cherish in our beloved Home?"
III
"I vouch for this old man," said Pettyman Castor, President of the United States. He put his hand patronizingly on the sloped shoulder that supported Manyface's huge head. "He is peculiar," Castor conceded tolerantly, "but he can't do any real harm. You see, he's all mixed up inside himself."
Just beside him, seated on her Governor's chair, Big Polly pursed her lips. She gazed out over the Congress of the United States (in Exile), looking for signs of agreement or rejection, but all the Senators and Congressones were as noncommittal as herself. "So you want us to let him go anywhere he wants to go, Mr. President?" she asked. "I mean, just as if he were loyal?"
"Absolutely," Castor said grandly, giving Manyface's shoulder a friendly thump. "Like I say. He's harmless. Besides, he's a friend of mine, kind of."
Big Polly sighed. "It is so ordered," she said, gazing around for objections and finding, as she expected, none. "So now we might as well adjourn this special session, right? And get on with the war?"
Well, there were no objections to that, for sure, and Manyface allowed himself to shake Castor's hand. "That was nice of you," he said as they walked out together.
"Any time," said Castor carelessly, smiling at a couple of barely pubescent sisters waving amorously from the steps. "It's ail over, you know. Once these people get their fleet through the spaceway China's finished."
"So it seems," said Manyface. "Well. I see you've got friends waiting for you, Castor. Don't worry about me. I'll find my way wherever I want to go all right."
He walked away as briskly as an elderly man supporting an extra fifteen kilograms of head on a weary neck could do. It was a good thing the gravity of World was light, compared to Earth's. It was a bad thing that the climate was so muzzy-clammy-Ao/ because the old man tired quickly. That couldn't be helped, he decided—his internal committee decided, nearly unanimously; he had things to do, and no choice about doing them.
The first thing to do was to convince himself that what Castor said was true. That was easy. Manyface managed to catch a ride on a hoverplatform skittering across the field to what the erks proudly called Mission Control. Jutch was on duty there and had no objections at all to satisfying Manyface's curiosity. Yes, there were thirty-one vessels already in orbit, fully armed and ready to go. (He obligingly called up images of them on the index screen.) Yes, there were plenty more in reserve, still on the ground—not all of them operational, to be sure, but then any dozen of them would surely be adequate to the job of knocking out China's pitiful combat forces. Many-face stood on the open platform of Mission Control, with the soft, warm rain of World falling on him, and felt very cold. Off on the horizon the great open tracework of the launch loop was getting ready to throw another ship into orbit. On the ground erks were bustling around the tractor that would pull the next vessel to the loop.