by Ed Charlton
“It’s logical, but screwing their own customers makes them sound kind of cheap, doesn’t it?”
“And what do we know about the Rapaxans?”
“Not cheap,” said Jim, shaking his head.
“That is the puzzle around the puzzle they will present to us.”
“When do we get more information from them?”
“There is a drone waiting off Europa. We’re to follow it.”
“Near my brother’s place? You know, his bathroom has a view of Jupiter unsurpassed in the solar system. We could stop by and say hello.”
Tella smiled. “We’re on a mission. There’ll be time for social calls on your days off. And I’m sure Dr. Able is busy enough running the biocenter without us dropping in.”
Jim cocked his head to one side. “How do you know about my brother?”
Tella mimicked his gesture. “The EIA knows everything, Jim; it has to.”
Chapter Four
The Gul-Raeff lay in the dimness of the room, his head held in the arms of his Luminant. She stroked the fur of his neck and watched his face. He glanced up at the aging eyes.
She is so frail. With a careless gesture, I could brush her away.
“Was the inspection as good as you had hoped?” she asked quietly.
“It was good. They’ve done well. The fleet is an awesome sight!”
“Deadlines are always an inspiration.”
“There is still much to do. Only a few of the refits have been done.”
“Don’t worry. The spirit will provide all that you need.”
He noted the slight weariness in her voice and said, “You are old. I hadn’t noticed that before.”
“My time is soon ending, Loff. The help I give must soon come from another.”
“I can’t imagine that.”
“You don’t have to. Wait. It will be.”
“You’ve been Luminant for what, fifteen years? I’ve heard no other voice.”
“You were late in being found, Raeff. You should have had guidance when you were a pup, from the time your paws were too big. I have done what I can with you.” She paused. “But you are meant for greater things than I shall see.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“You’ll have another. Listen to her as you have to me. All will be as the spirit means it to be.”
***
He slept there, where she left him, still in his uniform. She closed her private door soundlessly. Three others waited for her.
“Is he asleep?” one asked.
She nodded. “For a while. Has food been made ready to distract him from my absence?”
“The staff is prepared.”
“Then let’s go. Let’s do this quickly.”
She followed them out into the darkness.
A long black vehicle took them away from the residence. The guards had the gates open before she reached them. They stood in silent salute as she was driven through.
***
The meeting room looked down over acres of tanks stretching into the hazy distance. Farm vehicles sputtered about their business in between the tanks. The lines of lights hanging from the rock roof were level with the window and glared through the condensation on the glass.
“General Dol, it is good to see you again.”
“Luminant, it is an honor.”
She waved off the formality. “Relax. Come and sit with me.”
“As you wish.”
“Have you told her?”
“It wouldn’t be my place. Besides, we have to deliberate first.”
“But she knows why she is here?”
“I doubt it.”
“Hah! Things were different in my young days.”
“Indeed. Perhaps we make progress.” The general smiled.
She returned the smile but said, “I could still rip off one of your ears if I had to, youngster.”
“Of that, I have no doubt, Luminant.”
“You talk as if it were not a forgone conclusion.” She frowned.
“We do understand the importance of the recommendation.”
“Recommendation? You are fools if you decide against us! Who knows better than her trainers and keepers?”
“Things change, Luminant. There are many hands that do the Raeff’s work. There are many ways in which it can be done. We need to hear from them all.”
“Fool.”
Six more generals came into the room from the far end. Her three companions stood and escorted the newcomers to their seats around the table. After a few minutes, seven civilians entered and were shown their places.
“For whom do we wait?” she asked loudly.
“Just the doctors,” answered one of her companions.
“Why do we need them?”
“It is required, Luminant.”
“Required? By whom?”
“All but Muthlec require it and have for several generations.”
“And we must follow their ways?”
“Yes, Luminant, if it is to be acceptable to all.”
“Are you mad? The war is ended! Victory is ours! Why do we care for their acceptance of anything?”
Her companion was silent.
General Dol spoke. “Continuity of custom—in fact, universalization of custom—is seen as a source of strength for the future. It has been decided that local differences be de-emphasized. If that includes some Muthlec customs being...smoothed out, so be it.”
She glared at him and said, “You will cause nothing but trouble for yourselves if you give in to the defeated. They were crushed in battle and must be crushed at home. That is our way!”
“No longer. More urgent matters press us. Victory will be short if we do not change.”
“I am a stranger to the world you describe. I should have died long ago.”
“Hear the doctors, please. They have valuable insights.”
She lowered her voice so that only General Dol would hear her. “They destroy what they touch. They would replace insight with chemicals and knowledge with tricks.”
“They see the world in different terms than you. Listen to them, and they will listen to you.”
“Huh!” She shook her head and said nothing more.
When the last party joined them around the table, the general introduced her to them all. “We are honored with the presence of Calna, Luminant to the Gul-Raeff, chief advisor to the selection committee.”
So young, she thought, all so young. Is there none with any wisdom left?
“Listen, children,” she began in a strong voice, “and I will tell you of your fathers. I will tell you of your mothers. I will tell you of the past. I will describe to you the giants in whose jaws you were carried. I will show you—under your noses—the tracks of your ancestors, stepping one inside another as an endless hunt from the far depths of our race.”
All around the table, they were silent, transfixed by her voice and her manner. She waited, looking at each face in turn.
“Long ago, the life of our people was simpler. They knew nothing of machines and nothing of the skills of manufacture. They knew nothing of commerce or of agriculture or of medicine. In those days, they found all they needed living wild, growing wild. You,” she glared at the medical delegates, “dare to call them ‘primitive.’ Hah! They knew nothing of the things that cloud the mind. They knew more than you will ever know of the spirit! The spirit that bursts within each of us. The spirit that lights our way. The spirit that saves us from stagnation.”
No one spoke, in their discomfort, to challenge her.
She continued, “Early in our days, when the first stories were told, they knew the danger of stagnation. In family groups we lived our lives. There were wars, of course, small ones, soon ended. There was equilibrium for countless generations. The
se, whom you would call primitive, discovered what you now forget. These, whom you would call primitive, saw, from their own insight, from their own knowledge of the spirit, that progress was possible. They saw that their lives need not be always so small, so fragmented. They understood that which they had never been taught; before it was known, they discovered it. They discovered that each generation brings forth those with the seed of progress. Not all minds are the same. Not all children are young; not all adults are old. They understood that if all are the same, then all stay the same. They understood that the spirit is not given equally but burns deeper and hotter in some few than in the greater many. These they came to cherish. These are the Raeff. They are born to lead. They form the eternal ladder of which we are the rungs. We rise where they bid us rise. We bend where they bid us bend. All this they knew before a hammer was forged or fire kindled. They knew nothing of such things, yet they knew how to reach for the unreachable. They understood the Raeff would bring them through the fog of their unknowing.”
Under her fierce gaze, several snouts lowered to stare at the table.
“This, they also knew. The spirit rides the Raeff as the wind does the waves. They saw that no one body could hold fast in the storm of the spirit. They must have an anchor; they must have a shelter. The spirit burns the Raeff. They must have a cooling stream in which to roll when their backs are aflame; they must have a spiritual doctor.”
She paused and gently rolled her tongue along the length of her mouth.
“And so, our ancestors, most beloved and wise, gave the Raeff such an anchor. They gave them such a stream. They gave them such a doctor. It is to the Luminants that the Raeff may turn. When the spirit has come and a Raeff falls smoking to the ground, it is a Luminant who will catch him and douse him with peaceful words and a healing touch. It is the Luminant who makes the work of the Raeff possible to bear.
“And it is in that solemn and ancient tradition that we are gathered here.
“I am Luminant to the Muthlec-Raeff, I and no other! For all his life, since the spirit was discerned in him, I—and no other—have been his constant companion, mother, and healer. In all his hot tempests and all his ice storms, I have held fast. It is to me he has turned again and again, as I, in upholding these ancient traditions, have ministered to him.”
She paused again, but the fire in her eyes suddenly diminished.
“But now, even as he stands at the threshold of his greatest work, I must leave him. My time is at an end. You must assign the new Luminant. Paun Mic Loff must have new hands to hold him. This is your task. Choose badly and our world is lost. Choose well and he will think the title ‘Gul-Raeff’ merely a token given to a child for encouragement. There are many worlds, and he will lead us to them. Choose well and we can grasp that great future. Choose badly and that future will be merely an amputated stump—and the maggots that crawl in it will spit upon your names!”
No one dared break the silence. No one dared look her in the eye.
One of her companions, in a voice barely more than a breath, said, “The Luminant Council has suggested their preferred candidate among the three.”
“I can have no more to say than I have said,” Calna muttered. She stood up. “The choice is yours. I cannot give you wisdom if you do not yet have it. Choose well—but without me. My time is come. I must go.”
She sobbed faintly as she turned. A companion rushed to her and supported her as she made her way to the door.
“Go in peace, Calna!” called General Dol as she disappeared through the door.
***
The black vehicle stopped at an intersection. There was no signpost and there were no buildings. A dry wind brought dust and ash into the open door.
The old Luminant hurried off into the night.
By the time the vehicle returned, the decision had been made.
Chapter Five
Jim returned to his apartment to find the courier waiting for him.
“Mr. Able, I trust your first day went well?”
“Yeah, thanks. What are you doing here?”
“A few more formalities. I understand you have an assignment that requires travel off-planet. I wanted to be sure I saw you before you left.”
“Okay. Let’s go in.”
Jim held his key to the lock, but the door opened on its own. Inside were three men in overalls; a fourth had opened the door.
“All finished, gentlemen?” the courier called over Jim’s shoulder.
“Yes, sir, we’re done.”
They stepped back to let Jim through.
“What the hell is all this?” he said through gritted teeth.
“As I said, ‘formalities.’”
Jim walked through the short passageway into the main room, turned, and glared at the five of them.
“I want to know who let you in and why!”
The courier smiled—Jim thought with a glint of payback in his eye, perhaps for Jim’s questions earlier.
“The agency dispatched this team to check over the security of your apartment. You will find nothing has been damaged. We need to have a security sweep of all properties when anyone new comes on board. And I think I told you no changes could be made to properties you occupy without permission. This check provides us with the necessary baseline.”
“I would have liked to have been told.”
“I’m sure. But that is not the way things happen, Mr. Able. The agency has learned much over the years. You may trust that its methods are sound.
“Anything else?” asked Jim, not hiding his irritation.
“No, I believe they have completed everything.” He turned to check with one of the team.
“We’re done,” the man replied.
“Thank you. I will join you outside.”
They left without saying anything to Jim. As soon as the door was shut, the courier took out a small silver sphere from his pocket. He tapped the sphere once and a rainbow effect played around it.
“Have you ever seen one of these, Mr. Able?”
“No. What is it, an alien golf ball?”
“No. It has another purpose.”
Jim waited, still not inviting him to sit down. The courier stepped over to the table and gently placed the sphere on one of the inlaid tiles. Jim could see more clearly the faint markings of an alien script decorating its surface.
“It’s a jamming device, Mr. Able. We can talk in private now.”
“We couldn’t before?”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. I would rather these formalities left no record.”
“What do you want to say?”
The man smiled and nodded but avoided Jim’s eyes. He sighed loudly and looked about Jim’s apartment.
“This, I must admit, is exactly what I’d expected.”
“What?”
“This—somewhat tacky—décor, the encroaching piles of junk...typical of a lower-level bureaucrat.”
Jim’s irritation left him in an instant. He was alert now to the possibility of danger from this man. He stepped to the other side of the table to give himself two ways to move.
“Go on,” he said quietly. He looked again at the man he had thought of as an elderly cleric. What he now saw were the steady hands and unreadable face of an assassin.
“You see, Mr. Able, we know all about you. We know what you are.”
Jim waited for a moment. “Which question do you want me to ask first: ‘who’s we’ or ‘what am I’?”
The courier slammed his hands down on the table and yelled at Jim, “You don’t have to ask anything! You will listen!”
Jim smiled back.
“We know your record. We know about your drinking. We know how you screwed up at Ch’Garratt.”
Jim kept his smile but could feel his face coloring.
“You don’t deserve to be in
this agency. Your being here is an affront to every hardworking agent. You’re sloppy and spineless. You’re a degenerate. You also won’t last long; we’re watching you. We’ll wait for you. You’ll give us the chance, and you’ll be gone!” This last word he emphasized with another blow to the table. “Soon enough.”
“Thank you. I just hate being stabbed in the back by surprise. It’s so much better when you know it’s coming.”
“Joke all you want, Able. The EIA isn’t the cozy world of the Office of External Affairs—snoozing your way through trading logs and regulatory compliance complaints. We deal in matters of life and death.”
“Really? So does the OEA—the difference being they do it openly. They don’t need alien jamming devices.”
Jim leaned over the table and tapped the sphere gently. Its rainbow shades hardened instantly to silver. “So, Mr. Robert Sharkey, I have heard you and your threats against me. I assure you that anything you do to harm my career will be pursued with great interest. I’m sure the EIA doesn’t take kindly to secret societies within its ranks.”
The flash of alarm on Sharkey’s face morphed into a smile of deep hatred. He said nothing.
Jim continued holding his hand above the sphere.
“I made a point of finding out your name today. I wanted to be able to thank you for your advice this morning. Now I can thank you for telling me how resentful you, and your colleagues, feel about my getting this job.”
Sharkey lunged for the sphere, but Jim swept it off the table. In the hostile silence, they heard it bounce into the kitchen.
“I guess you don’t really want to be heard retrieving your personal jamming device, do you, Mr. Sharkey?”
The courier turned and left the apartment, slamming the door behind him.
Jim sagged into a chair at the table and put his head in his hands. I was actually going to send that jerk a thank-you note!
