Below you will find the short story Choices. As with Zero-Option, this work is provided free to the
reader under a Creative Commons license. I encourage anyone who wishes to do so to distribute it throughout the net and elswhere. Include it on your websites if you wish, or e-mail it to those you think may be interested. The one provision is that it not be used commercially and that all attributions must be retained (see the Creative Commons license for details).
If anyone knows how to get this onto manybooks.net and similar sites, I would greatly appreciate it.
Now, without further ado, I give you Choices. Happy reading!
Lindsay Brambles, 2007
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This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to
From CHRONICLES OF THE EARTH EMPIRE series.
Introduction:
Although the events of the following story take place after the novel In Darkness Bound and the novella Zero-Option, this story was actually written before either. At the time I was slowly constructing my “Earth Empire” universe; and though In Darkness Bound ( ISBN: 1-4241-6560-1) was very much on my mind at the time, the idea for this story was committed to paper first. Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say “disk.”
As with Zero-Option, I wrote this on a Commodore 64 using Paperclip II. The Commodore was the first “real” computer I owned; and all things considered, it was a marvelous little machine. Before that I had cranked out stories on a Smith-Corona Electronic typewriter (including one humongous novel, which for some reason I still hold onto despite the fact that it’s an unpublishable monstrosity).
I can’t honestly recall the motivations that led to the writing of Choices. Sometimes ideas come spring from events you read in the newspaper or see on TV. Often it’ll be some little thing that will then trigger an avalanche of thought and speculation. I do know that a great many of my ideas are fleshed out while bicycling. On my regular two or three hour rides I do some of my best thinking, working out the kinks in a story or novel while wandering the country roads around Ottawa.
I have yet another short novel of the Earth Empire (somewhat longer than Zero-Option) that I hope to put on the Internet at a later date. That one takes place during the height of the war, sometime after Zero-Option but well before Choices.
For now, however, I offer you the following short story. Just under twenty thousand words, I hope you’ll find it a quick and stimulating read.
Happy reading!
Lindsay H.F. Brambles, Ottawa, 2007
1.
Whenever I see the panai, I am reminded of Kieara. Reminded of how she changed a world. Or worlds—hers and mine. I close my eyes and see her face, and above the chanting of the crowd, I hear her voice. A soft exhalation of words. Calm. Measured and reasoned. Not at all consumed with the impassioned zeal that one might have expected of someone rebelling against a centuries old way of life. A sharp contrast to the shrill and often violent denunciations of those who believed in all that she did not.
Before Kieara I’d never seen a panai—though, as with all offworlders new to Tradur, I had heard the rumors long before I’d arrived. Had heard them, and of course had quickly dismissed them as nothing more than xenophobia. And yet now, because of Kieara, those rumors have become a dreaded reality. I see the evidence of them before me, day after day, hour by hour. They haunt me, appearing before me as one long and seemingly endless chain of enraged humanity moving up the wide avenue like a deranged army, swaying to a music only they can hear as they wave their fists in the air and shout defiance at the guarded buildings of the offworlder embassies. Often, from the windows of the Federation's mission, I have stood and watched as they pause and gather outside the gates, pressing against one another in a suffocating mass, remaining thus just long enough to hurl their vitriol and fling their ineffectual stones against the energy shields that protect the building during each long hour of Tradur's thirty hour days. It has become a ritual for them. Almost as much as the panai has always been. And for those of us within the embassy, it has become as constant as the rising and the setting of the sun.
I wait and watch in discomfort, knowing that I’m at least partially to blame for this. Because of my relationship with Kieara I’ve made us all prisoners in these walls until the ship comes to take us away. I think of how things might have been if Kieara hadn’t sought me out those many months ago, of how different this moment would be if the first real choice she’d made in her life hadn’t been to choose me. Perhaps there’d be no chanting crowds thirsting for the blood of offworlders; and we’d have all remained blissfully ignorant of the true horror she dared reveal to us.
2.
Like all stories, this one has a beginning. But it starts at the end of another story—or perhaps at the end of many. Its beginnings are rooted in the conclusion of a long and bitter conflict from which the Empire is only now slowly emerging. If there can be said of such a hard fought war that there was a winner, then it was the Federation that rose from the dust and rubble to claim victory. But in truth we’re all losers in such struggles, and no more is that evident than in the existence of worlds like Tradur.
Our victory was bought at great expense. We sacrificed millions of men and women for the sake of principle, but in the end we sold those principles for a mess of potage. Peace came with compromise; and part of that was to allow worlds like Tradur to remain virtually sovereign, exempt from many of the provisions of the new constitution. It isn’t something most people like, but after so much death and destruction no one wanted to continue the war simply for the rights and freedoms of a handful of people. Principles were what got us into this mess in the first place; and when all is said and done, just how many lives are worth sacrificing for the sake of ideals that many of the people on Tradur and worlds like it could care less about?
Some say that when we won the war against the Reds we should have wiped the religion off the face of the map. They argue that to have not done so is only asking for trouble later on; and it’s true there are those among the Red Catholic polity who continue to agitate for rebellion. But even they realize the limitations of their cause, and understand that among their own there is no longer an appetite for war. Whole worlds were lost in the conflict. Hundreds of millions of people. No one is anxious to invite that upon the Empire again any time soon.
And so we live with conditions many of us find repugnant. We have no choice. There is neither the strength nor the will within the Federation to carry the fight beyond what we’ve achieved. One day we may well live to regret that, but for now we’re happy enough to live at all.
I had seen the war first hand, having fought on the front lines during some of the worst of the conflict. I had watched many good people die. A lot of friends. A lot of people dear to me. I should have hated the Reds for that, and there was a part of me that did. But having been witness to the war in ways many had not, I understood better than most that we could never rid ourselves of the Reds. It’s a difficult thing to fight ideas. More difficult still when those ideas take the form of religion and faith. Guns and bombs are ineffective against them. And to have tried to have done more than what we had, we would have had to have paid even more dearly than we already had. I didn’t want to see any more graves, and most everyone else in Fleet felt the same. We’d had our fill of funerals.
In the early days following the war, Admiralty controlled the Federation. As I still held my commission, the powers-at-be decided that for the difficult posting of ambassador to Tradur they would prefer a person with a strong military background. I had captained the heavy cruiser FS Indomitable, and had been fleet captain when Chastity had fallen to Fleet warships. But my face was unknown to the Reds, which meant I could go into Tradur in the guise of a civilian.
Technically, as the Federation’s ambassador, I was the most powerful person on the planet. But in reality the Federation’s control over Tradur basically stopped a few hundred kilometres from the surface. The Reds still maintained an iron grip on the population, and to have replaced them with the sort of democratic government the Federation preferred would have been near to impossible given the unswerving allegiance many on the world had to the Red Catholic faith.
When I arrived I understood this pressure cooker I was stepping into, and the risk my background in the military posed. On Tradur there was still a lot of enmity for Fleet, who many regarded as their oppressor and enemy of the faith. They would never have knowingly countenanced the presence of a Fleet officer—active or retired.
Accordingly. I made every effort to play the part of diplomat—even to the point of hosting a reception not long after I arrived. It was here that I first met Kieara; and it is a moment I shall never forget. It changed my life forever—and may well have changed the future of entire worlds.
3.
"Probably the most powerful man on the planet," Burrye muttered to me in warning as a tall, elegantly-attired Tradurian approached us through the assembled guests. He was like a great ship whose prow cut the waves with impunity, the crowd parting before him without urging, while in his wake trailed an even dozen of his entourage, who, like gulls hovering above the transom of a yacht in hopes of food, waited to dart forward upon a summons. At the great man's side a young woman—surely too young to be one of his many wives—matched his pace without seeming effort, floating gracefully along in a billowing cloud of silver-blue silks. She was tall and slender and strikingly beautiful; and I wondered if the crowd parted as much for her as they did for the man whom she accompanied.
"It makes you wonder if we actually won the war," Burrye said in a surly undertone.
"It would have been a mistake to have completely crushed the Church," I said around a tight smile. "And on worlds like this they're still the dominant power."
"Like I said," Burrye growled: "It makes you wonder who won the damn war."
"Prelate Kuhn," I said, bowing deferentially as the head of the Tradurian Red Catholic Church halted before us and surveyed us with an imperious air.
"Our host, Tiae Morrisohn," said one of the courtiers in response to Kuhn's questioning look over his shoulder. "The new Federation ambassador from Earth, assari."
"Earth," said Kuhn, venting the word from his mouth as though it were an imprecation. "You are a long way from home, ambassador," he added, with a lowering glare of openly hostile contempt.
It was difficult to know what to say in response to the obvious. But as I regarded the prelate and his companion, I realized he wasn’t talking about light-years. Indeed, the great gulf between our two worlds became markedly evident as we stood there facing one another.
"The people of Earth wish you long life and prosperity, assari," I said, filling the sudden and uncomfortable silence with this stilted bit of protocol I’d been instructed to follow.
"I do not need, nor do I desire the good wishes of your world," snarled the prelate. "It may well be the belief of the Federation that you have won a great victory and that you have somehow unified the Earth Empire, ambassador. But I can assure you that is not a sentiment shared by my people. We tolerate your presence here because the Terms of Surrender provide us no alternative. But beyond honoring the agreement signed by the cardinali, we are not obligated to embrace you and your heathen ways. We do not wish to be contaminated by the incursion of outside forces."
"It isn’t our intention to threaten the integrity of your world in any way, assari," I assured him, although that was stretching the truth somewhat.
"Your very presence here threatens it," he said; and then he was gone, drifting away in his cloud of obsequious followers, targeting yet another of the offworld ambassadors as an audience for his litany of condemnation.
"You were lucky," said Burrye dryly. "He's not usually so pleasant." He had a glass of something potent in hand, and took a sip from it as his narrowed eyes followed the progress of the prelate through the room.
"I've met worse."
He shook his head, sober-faced. "No, Captain, I very much doubt you have. This is no ordinary man; and his feelings about offworlders are widely known. They carry considerable weight—even if the Church is no longer the force it once was in the Empire. When you've been here a bit longer you'll realize that while Tradur may outwardly appear to be a paradise, it's anything but."
"You make it seem so ominous," I teased.
Burrye didn’t laugh. "I think it is," he said.
"Surely you don't put much stock in rumor."
"You've only been here a couple of days," he grunted as he took yet another draw from his drink. "You haven't seen much beyond the embassy and the shuttle port. Wait a few weeks. The allure of the scenery soon fades, I assure you. It won't be long before you'll realize there's something not quite right about this place."
"Maybe you're making the mistake of looking at it through the eyes of an offworlder," I suggested.
"They're the only eyes I have, Captain."
"We can't judge them as we would judge ourselves," I cautioned him. "They're tens of light-years and a dozen or so centuries removed from Earth."
"Clearly," Burrye muttered, with a distaste I found disquieting.
"Tell me," I said, wanting to change the subject, "who was the woman with the Kuhn?" I tried to sound casual in my inquiry, but was only partially successful. I could tell by the cautionary look Burrye gave me that he wasn’t in the least bit fooled.
"Kieara Cjhar," he said, following my gaze as I watched her move with Kuhn from one offworld delegation to another. "One of his daughters. The eldest. She's a leading disciple within the Red Catholic Church. Like father like daughter, I suppose." He made a face. "Not someone you'd want to get involved with," he added pointedly.
"You speak from experience?" I asked, knowing that he didn’t. At the official level relations between Tradurians and offworlders were severely constrained—one might even have gone so far as to suggest they were virtually non-existent. Not for lack of effort on the part of offworlders, however; it was the choice of the Tradurians to remain essentially isolated. Even on matters of trade the dealings were brief and to the point. Not that we’d anticipated much else when we’d begun this delicate process of bringing the worlds of Unity back into the fold of the Federation following the long harsh decades of war.
Burrye regarded me levelly. "I'm here to advise you, Captain."
"Advise, yes," agreed. "But I make the decisions, Mister Burrye."
"You're not on a ship anymore," he said bluntly. "There's none of that full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes business here."
"Thank you for reminding me," I drawled, none too sarcastically. "And yes, I'm not on a ship anymore. Haven't been for years. So you might be advised to be cautious when referring to me as Captain. I'm sure the Reds wouldn’t be particularly enamored of the fact that the Federation embassy is headed by someone who once fought on the front lines against them."
"Aye,aye!" he said, snapping off a mock salute.
I shot him a dark look of disapproval, but knew it wouldn’t change anything. Burrye was a career diplomat, a man genengineered for the foreign service. He knew no other line of work; and his life had been devoted to this one cause. So it was understandable that he might feel somewhat resentful of a spacer being given an essentially diplomatic assignment. He was undoubtedly convinced I’d been awarded this posting as something of a sop for years of service in a war for which we’d all paid a high price. It was unlikely I could disabuse him of that notion—though if he’d looked around, he’d have discovered that most of the ambassadorial positions that had opened up in the defeated Unity were occupied by former Fleet officers. And for good reason. The Federation didn’t trust the Unity--or what remained of it. Unfortunately, one of the compromises that had brought about the peace had been to include a clause in the Terms of Surrender that had prohibited the placement of military attaches in any of the new embassies. To get around that, the Admiralty, which was handling the administration of peace for the Federation, had merely assigned former Fleet officers as heads of the various missions they’d opened throughout the Unity. We were here to make sure that the Unity couldn’t re-establish itself militarily. So for now men and women like myself had assumed a different sort of command: One that was no less challenging and no less important than when we’d skippered those floating arsenals of democracy for which Fleet was better known.
But I was first and foremost a spacer. I’d been genengineered for it. From the moment of my conception my fate had been determined. Determined by the choices of my parents. I wasn’t a diplomat, and Burrye knew it. As far as he was concerned, that meant I was a risk to the success of this mission. Maybe he was right.
"No offense," Burrye said, continuing in his earlier vein, "but it's a bit of a stretch from commanding a warship to heading a mission like this, don't you think?"
"Not at all," I assured him. "Being the captain of a ship can be the supreme test of diplomacy. When you're dealing with the lives of nearly a thousand men and women, not to mention the frequent confrontations with all manner of ships and worlds, you soon acquire quite a feel for this sort of thing. However, I trust that you'll keep me in line, should I make a misstep." I looked at him forcefully, making it clear that he had better work with me and not against me. If it were the latter, then he’d soon find himself catching the next ship out from Tradur. Not that I was sure he’d mind being chased from this world.
Burrye put down his drink and made a stiff bow. Then he straightened, as though coming to attention. "You can rest assured, Captain, that I’ll serve to the best of my abilities."
That was what I was afraid of.
4.
If you imagine a tropical paradise on Earth, then you have a good impression of what an outsider sees upon arriving at the central shuttle port on Tradur. It’s perhaps one of the most beautiful worlds in all the Earth Empire. Certainly among the prettiest I’ve ever had the good fortune to see.
From space one is immediately struck by the lack of continents. There are only islands girding the equator, strung like a necklace through azure seas. Few reach farther north or south than twenty degrees latitude; and given that the axial tilt of the world is little more than five degrees, this makes for what some call a monoclimatic situation—although in truth that is a condition supportable in only the most rigid of closed systems.
On the surface Tradur is every bit as beautiful as it is from space. Perhaps even more so. But that’s the physical side of the world. Not the political one. And on the latter score Tradur isn’t so pleasant. Indeed, as Burrye had warned me, it’s easy to dismiss the scenery once one has become more accustomed to what day-to-day life is like on this planet.
There is an air of guarded restraint whenever one has dealings with the locals. Even in the markets this is apparent, though the merchants are eager enough to part you from your coin. But they do so rather circumspectly, as though they’re under the ever-watchful eye of the Church and its minions—which is more than likely true.
Everywhere you go you have the feeling of being under surveillance. For myself that isn’t an altogether new experience. Before they gave me a ship to command, I spent several years in Naval Intelligence. As a field operative you learn quickly to be paranoid—it can sometimes mean the difference between life and death.
As ambassador to Tradur I was reminded of those days. No doubt it was partly because of those NI experiences that I ended up here. And it was perhaps also because of those experiences that I was wary when Kieara Cjhar first approached me.
5.
"You shouldn't go," said Burrye.
I looked at him squarely. "Are there valid reasons for this concern?" I asked.
"Only the obvious, like the fact they might try to kill you."
"They’ve had ample opportunity for that already."
"It would be quite easy for them to arrange compromising circumstances that could prove an embarrassment to the Federation."
"A risk we'll have to take," I said, smiling thinly. "We can hardly be effective in our mission if we allow ourselves to be governed by that particular fear."
"This whole cloak and dagger business is sheer nonsense!" he exclaimed. "What possible reason could the daughter of the prelate have for wanting to see you?"
"I suppose I'll find out soon enough. Perhaps she took a liking to me," I added, only half facetiously.
Burrye gave me an odd look. "I'm sure you're not serious," he said in an even tone. "The Church is still the power here, Captain. And Kieara Cjhar is very much a part of it. On any other world such a relationship would probably cause few problems. But not here. If she did take a fancy to you, she’d never dare breathe a word of it. Not to you or anyone. Certainly she’d never dare act upon it—even if she is the daughter of the prelate."
"I'm not a fool," I said, rather icy-toned.
He muttered something under his breath and shook his head. Then he said more loudly, "It's a fool's errand, Captain."
"I see no threat," I argued. "And I can hardly refuse the invitation. The purpose of our mission is to improve diplomatic relations, not hinder them."
"You might yet do that."
It would have been easy to have laughed off his reservations, but they were quite convincing ones. Indeed, when the request for a meeting between me and Kieara Cjhar had come through, I’d confronted myself with the very same concerns. Tradur, after all, wasn’t like most of the worlds that had been a part of Unity. Few of those had begun as enclaves of the Church, and consequently their populations hadn’t been almost exclusively composed of devoted practitioners of the faith. When the Unity had fallen, many had welcomed the end of Church tyranny elsewhere in the Empire. Here, however, nearly the entire population was of a fundamentalist bent; and though the Unity had been defeated here as elsewhere, the people of this world hadn’t faltered in their beliefs. If anything, they’d become more devout in their adherence to the strictures of the Red Catholic Church. And despite the Federation's best efforts to temper the influence of the Church, its presence remained a powerful, overarching force. That was why a handful of priests and cardinali could continue to exert control over the people through the use of fear. Those who might try to turn their backs on the guardians of the faith did so at peril. The price they could pay for such audacity was dear.
Burrye was right in wondering just who had won the war. In the twentieth century, when Hilter's forces had fallen to the Allies, the Nazis had been crushed and virtually wiped from the face of the Earth. But when the Federation had finally prevailed in its long struggle against the Unity, Red Catholicism and all its many institutions had remained. Yet this was a religion responsible for the deaths of millions in the years since its fiery birth. In the name of the Red Catholic Popes who had reigned through the decades of conflict, tens of thousands of Empaths had been hunted down and slaughtered. Butchered like animals. And in its quest to broaden the compass of its reach, whole worlds had been razed to eliminate them as a threat to the faith.
"You should at least take someone with you," Burrye said.
I gave him a dry look. "That would hardly help foster trust, now would it?"
"With all due respect, Captain, I don't think the Reds are deserving of anyone’s trust."
"You puzzle me, Jacob," I said.
He frowned.
"You act like someone with a grudge," I explained. "I've seen Empaths with less animosity towards the Unity than you seem to harbor."
Burrye's face coloured. "I just wonder why we're so magnanimous," he said. "They killed millions. You of all people should know the brutality they exhibited. You were there, on the front lines. You saw people die."
"Yes," I whispered. "I saw people die. Too many. Which is why I'm here. I've no desire to see more people join those who have already suffered our folly. I want to see this peace work, Jacob. And if that means showing a little humility when it comes to the Red Catholics, if it means accepting that they’ll continue to be a part of this Empire, then so be it. That’s infinitely preferable to war. Only someone who has never fought in one could think otherwise," I added pointedly.
"Perhaps, Captain, you've become too hardened by your years of service."
I arched a brow and regarded him quizzically. "Meaning?"
"Meaning that perhaps you can no longer understand the pain of those of us who lost loved ones because of the Reds."
I felt a small kernel of rage explode somewhere within me, but I didn’t unleash it. What would have been gained by railing at him? How could he know his words were like a stinging slap across the face? Unless, of course, he’d intended them to be just that.
"We in the ships weren’t machines out there," I said in a slow, deliberate manner. "It wasn’t easy killing people. It never is. And despite what some might suggest, you don’t become hardened to it. The only way one ever kept one's sanity was to tell oneself that it was us or them. And better it be them than us."
Burrye shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't mean to imply—"
"I think I know what you meant," I said brusquely. "And now if you'll excuse me, I've a meeting to attend." I made to leave my office.
"Captain," Burrye called after me.
I turned and looked at him.
He stared back at me, looking somewhat contrite. "Good luck," he said at last.
"Luck is for the unprepared," I said, remembering an old adage from my days in the Academy. And then I left, hurrying out of the embassy on my way to my appointment with Kieara Cjhar—where I soon discovered I should have paid heed to another little tidbit of Academy advice: expect the unexpected.
6.
"Put this on," my guide said. He handed me a black, hooded cloak. "For the scanners," he explained, noting my perplexed look.
"I’d have thought that it would have taken something a little more sophisticated than this," I mused aloud as I donned the garment.
He laughed. "They are more pious on Tradur than they are on Chastity," he said in a lumbering baritone. "It has always allowed the Church to rule by fear. Little need for expensive security devices when you can achieve the same thing by threatening would-be transgressors with the wrath of God." He laughed again, a brittle, cynical laughter; and then he pulled the hood of his own cloak up over his head, burying his face in shadow. He started forward, motioning for me to follow.
We stepped from the safety of the embassy's encompassing shield and out onto the ill-lit avenue we’d all taken to calling “Embassy Row.” There was no one in sight, which was the whole idea. Without checking to see whether or not I was following, the guide headed quickly up the avenue, towards the heart of the city.
I’m no stranger to the machinations of the underground, but the method by which I was conveyed to my rendezvous with Kieara Cjhar rivaled anything I’d ever experienced as an intelligence operative. We moved under cover of darkness, my guide and I wending our way through the narrow streets of Tradur's capital, Jehku, avoiding the more built-up areas of the city. Once we even descended into the murky depths of a maze of service tunnels, far from the prying eyes of the curatai, the morality police who patrolled the streets in search of strictures violators. The curatai made me mindful of the fact that there was a curfew in effect for Tradurian woman following the setting of the sun. This lasted until sunrise, at which point the women of Tradur exchanged the prison of their home for the prison of a society that saw them as little more than property.
As we moved through the oppressive heat of the tropical night, I was ever mindful of Burrye's fears. It would be easy for me to disappear in a situation like this. Or worse, perhaps, to be caught by the curatai doing what I shouldn’t have been doing in the first place.
My fears were quelled somewhat when we reached what my guide claimed was our destination. I recognized it immediately as the Temple of Sentai, which, according to my research earlier in the day, was the known residence of Kieara Cjhar. I was ushered in through a narrow doorway that was far from the main entrance of the temple. My guide remained outside. Once within, I found myself alone, standing in my dark cape in the center of a small antechamber. I drew back my hood and looked around, but there was little to see. The room was poorly lit by a single glowtube. There were no markings on the walls, and no openings, save the door through which I’d come and another opposite it.
I waited.
Just when I had begun to think I’d been played the fool, a woman appeared at the other door. She beckoned in silence, gesturing me forth, deeper into the temple. Sentai was restricted to women. More particularly, to those women who had devoted their lives to the Church. They were known as the cjhavari, the daughters of the god-revered. No Tradurian male—including the prelate himself—was permitted within the walls of the temple. To violate this sanction was to risk certain censure from the Church—the least of which was excommunication, though punishments as severe as death weren’t unheard of.
There was nothing impressive about the interior of the temple. It lacked the ornateness that was to be found in the palace of the cardinali and the cathedral of the prelate, or in any of the many churches that dominated much of the skyline of Jehku and the other cities of Tradur. Indeed, its simple appointments were a rather refreshing contrast to a faith that seemed mired in the cynicism of gaudy gold and jewel encrusted trappings.
We walked down several passageways, all of which were dimly lit by scattered glowtubes. There were doors set here and there in the thick walls, all of them closed, most of them no doubt concealing the spartan cells in which I imagined the occupants of the Sentai lived. At length the young acolyte who had been leading me through this labyrinth halted before one of these doors. She turned to me and bowed, lifted a hand indicatively towards the door, and then backed away, finally retreating down the corridor and leaving me to stand there bewildered.
After a moment or two I did the instinctual thing and knocked.
"Come in, Ambassador Morrisohn. The door is not locked."
I pushed, and the door, made of heavy wood and bound with iron, swung inwards on well-oiled hinges, opening to reveal a room quite like what I’d expected to find. It was spare, with a narrow cot in one corner, a desk placed before a window, and a tall clothes cupboard on the wall opposite the bed. There were a couple of chairs, one for the desk and one clearly for a guest—the latter looking somewhat out of place and no doubt there solely for my benefit.
Kieara Cjhar sat by the desk. She wore a simple white linen shift, quite unlike the stunning gown she’d worn to the embassy reception. Oddly enough, she seemed more fetching in this coarse garment, the simplicity of its design and material a marked understatement that permitted her natural beauty to radiate unblemished. She wore no jewellery, and her dark, lustrous hair was bound in a single braid that hung down her back and reached to her waist.
She smiled warmly, invitingly, and gestured towards the other chair.
I sat, easing myself into the seat, eyeing my host somewhat warily. For a moment we merely sat staring at one another. Or perhaps it was I who just stared at her, for I couldn’t get over how beautiful she was. Beautiful, because her features weren’t the stony, unrealistic perfection of the bioscultor. There were flaws and imperfections, which only seemed to make the face all that much more attractive. It had a character that so many sculpted ones like my own didn’t.
The first thing she said was: "Foreigners are forbidden within the walls of the Sentai." And then she laughed, clearly amused by the way my face seemed to lose all color.
"Do not fret, Captain Morrisohn," Kieara went on. "I have taken precautions. Believe me, I have no desire to draw the wrath of my father. He would, in all his piety, find it necessary to make an example of me before the whole world. That is an experience the like of which I can guarantee no one would wish to endure."
"You called me Captain," I said, trying to ignore the sick feeling of apprehension that continued to gnaw at me.
"We are not without our sources, Captain." She smiled again, a smile that illuminated the entire room. "The Federation may well have won the war, but it has not rendered the Church entirely toothless. There are still many devoted followers of the faith throughout the Earth Empire. And not just in what was once known as the Unity," she added pointedly.
I nodded. "Of course," I conceded. She was merely confirming something Admiralty had long known. But to hear it from someone so well connected to the Church gave it a level of authenticity it had never quite held in my mind before.
"You are wondering why you are here," said Kieara.
"Curious, yes," I agreed. "You seem to have gone to a great deal of effort to arrange this encounter and ensure its privacy."
"It is amazing the things people will do for you when you are the daughter of the prelate, captain," she observed somewhat ruefully. "On this world people are governed much by their fears."
"Indeed." I regarded her directly. "And are you, too, governed by fear?"
She smiled wanly. "I am the daughter of a man who believes himself the vessel of God, Captain. He lives by a code, a set of standards by which we are all expected to set the course of our lives. He imagines himself the last bastion of the true faith. Chastity may well have been the center of the Red Catholic universe, but to my father it was always Tradur which paid greatest obeisance to the strictures of the faith."
"And you’re your father's daughter," I said simply; but it was apparent by the fact that I was here, in a place that I shouldn’t have been, that she wasn’t.
"For many years I believed as he did," she conceded. She looked down at her hands, which she held together delicately in her lap, then raised her eyes to confront me once more with that bewitching liquid blue stare. "I had no reason not to. I was born and raised within the faith. It was the rule by which my life was measured."
"And now?"
"There were no offworlders on Tradur until the defeat of the Unity," she said, as though that were explanation enough.
I waited a moment before saying anything, then: "You saw a different way of life."
"I saw that the words of the faith had not run true. You were not the incarnations of all evil our leaders to us you were. The universe did not open up a great darkness and swallow us all for having looked upon your face."
"Whew! Glad to know that," I said, miming relief by wiping away imaginary sweat from my brow.
"You mock me," she said, looking hurt.
I sobered quickly, straightening up in my chair, and suddenly feeling apologetic. "Sorry," I said, suitably contrite. "I didn't mean to make light of what you're saying."
"I suppose we must seem rather primitive to you," she said.
"Different." I thought of the war, and of how they’d almost won it. No, they were hardly primitive, although Tradur might well have given one that impression. But then, Tradur wasn’t like any of the other worlds of what had once been the Unity.
"This world has changed little since the first settlers arrived," Kieara continued. "There has always been a reluctance to embrace the new. And in the tenets of our faith we have strayed little from the original doctrines, save where it has been deemed necessary for survival."
"That must come at a cost."
"A far greater one than you can imagine, Captain," she said, her manner grave. "My father seeks only that which will ensure the survival of his faith. He will do whatever is necessary in his eyes to maintain it," she added. "When you are blinded by the unyielding light of a personal vision, Captain, it becomes a simple matter to find justification in any act. The leaders of our faith have done this for centuries, and many of us have paid a dear price because of it. The war with the Federation was but a small part of that."
"These are rather frank observations, coming from one who is said to be so devoted to the Church," I pointed out, somewhat cynically.
"Do not be deceived by all you see and here, Captain."
"And what is it I'm seeing and hearing now?"
"As with us all, you will see and hear what you wish to." Kieara smiled weakly. "I would show you honesty, Captain." She bowed her head demurely. "And I would hope that you would hear sincerity."
"Why?"
"So that I might gain your trust."
"And having done so?"
"Then I would ask of you a favor, and hope that you would not hesitate in granting it."
I swallowed, feeling a leaden lump slide down my throat and fall heavily into the pit of my stomach. It sat there, a rotting mass of anguish.
"What favor will you ask?" I heard myself whisper in a voice tight with anxiety.
"Not now, Captain," she said. "The asking will come when I am sure of your reply."
"And until then?"
"We shall meet, as we have met now. Again. And again. However many times it may be necessary. Or until I have no more time," she concluded cryptically.
I looked at her and saw a sense of desperation in her eyes: a plea for understanding and patience. And I thought to myself, then, that if she’d asked me her favor I wouldn’t have hesitated in granting it—even if it had meant risking a career.
I started to say something, but she held up a hand to silence me. She motioned to the door, then turned her chair towards her desk and submerged herself in the shimmering text that floated in the cube of her com-link. I blinked, taken aback, slowly realizing I’d been dismissed. I rose sluggishly from the chair and turned to the door. The acolyte who had led me here was waiting in rigid silence.
"When will we meet again?" I asked Kieara Cjhar as I stood at the threshold of the doorway.
"You will be informed," she said without turning.
I followed the acolyte to the doorway through which I’d entered the Sentai. The guide was waiting in the narrow alleyway, hidden in the shadows by his hooded cloak. As the door into the Sentai closed behind me, he started forward, not waiting to see whether or not I followed. In silence he led me back to the embassy. Only once I was back within the safety of the embassy's shield did I realize how terrified I’d been. I had fought on the front line against the Unity, both in the field and on the ships, and had seen with my own eyes the horrors of which they were capable. But never once had I felt as vulnerable as I’d felt out there in those darkened streets, my life entrusted to people I had no right to trust. And yet, I did trust them. Or at least I trusted Kieara Cjhar.
I didn’t sleep much that night. I couldn’t help but wonder what favor it was she’d ask of me.
7.
"I don't believe her," said Burrye.
I swiveled in the chair behind my office desk and looked across the room at him. "You mean you don't want to believe her," I said.
He scowled, his dark glower seeming to drop the temperature of the room by degrees. "You don't know these people, Captain," he said. "I've been here for two years. Been here since the embassy was first established. I've watched Kuhn and his daughter, and believe me, nothing I've seen suggests to me she’d ever betray him."
"She never made it clear she would," I argued.
"What she did last night by meeting with you—in of all places the Sentai!—would be enough to get her killed." He shook his head. "No, I can't begin to accept for a moment that she’d have done what she's done without her father knowing about it. It's too great a risk if she were caught."
"Then you're convinced this is some sort of trap," I said.
"Of course it is!" he barked impatiently. "What else could it be? It makes no sense, otherwise."
"Unless, of course, there is indeed something she wants of me," I said. "Something only we can provide."
Burrye snorted loudly. "Next you'll be suggesting she might be thinking of seeking asylum with us."
"That had crossed my mind."
"Why?" he demanded. "Why would she need asylum? As daughter of the prelate she certainly doesn't want for anything. She has a coveted position on this world. Why would she want to give that up? There's no suffering for the likes of her."
"There are many definitions for suffering," I said.
"I'm sorry, Captain, but I just don't buy into it. You've met her once and that should be the end of it."
"And if it isn't?"
"If it isn't, we could end up with the sort of incident that can start a war."
"What if she's genuinely seeking our help?" I asked. "During the war we never turned our backs on those who sought our assistance," I reminded him.
"The war has been over almost five years now, Captain."
"So it has, Jacob. So it has. And perhaps that's good enough reason to start trusting once more."
"The Reds haven’t accepted defeat," said Burrye. "The Church still preaches that we're the enemy. And Kieara Cjhar was raised in the Church, Captain."
"And you don't think she could have changed?"
He shook his head. "I've heard her preach to crowds," he said. "I’m not sure you could fake the kind of passion I’ve seen in her. She spoke like a true zealot—and not some wayward soul doubting the strength of her convictions."
"On the ships," I said quietly, "we often fooled even ourselves that we believed in the war we were fighting."
Burrye looked at me aghast. "The war with the Unity was wholly justified!" he exclaimed, his face coloring with indignation. "I've no doubts that what we did was necessary."
"How many did you kill with your own hands?" I demanded. "How many ships did you hunt down and destroy, knowing that inside them were hundreds of men? How many of your friends did you hold in your arms and watch die?" I could feel my rage growing, becoming that untameable beast that hadn’t served me well in the past. I resented that he should think he could possibly understand the horrors of war when he hadn’t been there. He hadn’t stood on the bridge of a ship and ordered the deaths of thousands. He hadn’t heard the screams of the dying, hadn’t watched the life drain out of them. He’d never had to make the hard choices that every commanding officer has to make at some point within the context of war.
"Would you have had us all under the thumb of the likes of Kuhn?" Burrye challenged. “You, better than anyone else, should realize the war had to be waged to prevent that.”
"I do, Jacob. I fought because I believed in what I was fighting for. Because I passionately believed in the freedoms the Unity would have denied many of us if they’d won.” My face hardened. “You can’t begin to imagine