by Jim Rudnick
From behind him came a voice.
“Captain, do you have any idea how long that farm has lain like that, broken and unused?” the Master Adept said, as she glided up beside him in front of the large window.
He couldn’t answer, as he had no idea.
She nodded. “More than fifty years, Captain. I’ve been right here to watch that farm have bumper crops … and now sit fallow in the heavy radiation that has changed our climate. I’ve watched rain come down so hard that the little slope there,” she said as she pointed to the spot where one of the barns lay, “looked like a waterfall. It’s not rained here in those decades other than the few showers we get in the spring. Our climate—Eons, in fact—is in jeopardy, Captain, which is why you’re here,” she said with a degree of justification in her voice.
He turned to look at her as his head tilted to one side, and he pointed back at the coffee table in front of the sofa he’d been sitting on moments earlier.
“Ma’am, I was sent to deliver those,” he said, referring to the large envelope that lay there, “as they are the minutes of the academy opening event planning session we just had this morning, Ma’am.”
She shook her head as she turned and went to sit on the facing sofa as he took his original seat opposite her.
“Captain, yes, thank you for the report. But that’s not why I asked the Lady St. August to request that you be sent to me. This is not at all about that event, Captain—but about you and the lady and Eons too,” she said, and Tanner thought she was being a bit odd, but he nodded. And waited.
She took her time before continuing and picked up the tea that was set for her, took a small sip, and then put the cup back carefully on the saucer that was on the table. She brushed her lips with a corner of the napkin she had laying in her lap and she sighed.
“Captain—has it not occurred to you that something else is at work here? That you are so often at the source of things that happen here on the RIM? And yes, while that may be just serendipity rearing its chance head, there are times when we Issians see that you are the crux often of the foreshadowing of those circumstances, Captain. Do you ever feel like that?”
He looked at her and half-smiled.
“Sometimes, Master, I thought that it was because I had a load on—Scotch, I mean, that these things cropped up. But then other times, I felt like if it wasn’t me—it’d just be someone else. I’m far from being special in any way, any navy man with my experience would find himself in the same circumstances, and would react the same way. Pull a trigger or turn to port or ask, huh? We think alike, so no, I don’t think that I’m special at all, Master,” he said, and he knew he’d just spoken the truth for himself.
She shook her head and again sipped her tea. “Not always the case, Captain, as we Issians know that around you lies a very special force—a simple navy captain perhaps, but one that we know makes the right decisions, the right choices, the right actions time and time again. You know—especially from your connection to us Issians via your friendship with your own Adept officer, Bram—that we can often see what is coming. Not so much like a direct doorway that is open and we’re looking through—rather like a wall of doorways all with different results, but some are brighter and closer to our brains. It’s those ones that often want to happen, and it’s those ones we try to send our champions toward. Champions like you, Captain. Will you be our champion yet again?” she asked, and this time he knew she too spoke the truth.
He looked out at the farm that lay fallow and thought for a moment about what that might mean.
He wondered what giving assent to this question—mandate really—might mean.
He guessed that once again, his life was about to change, and he looked at the small woman opposite him.
“Two years, Captain. I will be the Master Adept for only two more years, yet I want to help guide Eons back to a full robust future—and to do that, we need you to help. Will you help, Captain?”
He frowned a bit and said, “Two years only?”
She nodded. “Yes, Captain, having the abilities that we do—at least at a Master’s level, means that we know of our own demise. Mine is two years away, which means that my work over the past few decades to find and train my replacement is about done. But I also have other tasks to complete too—and one of them involves yourself and the Barony—the Lady St. August, in fact. You will wed her in the next year—and yes, I accept your invitation to perform the ceremony for you two,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
He was floored by that and looked at her, his mouth wide open. “But … but, Master—we were—we are—in love, yes, but we can’t be married until we work out some issues between us, Ma’am,” he said, and he realized if the Master could see this, then it must be true.
She nodded. “Not important for now. Before that ceremony, we must ask you for help in something else. Something is pending that will affect our Issian way of life—my successor, in fact. We need you to be forewarned and so be forearmed—literally, I’m afraid, this time, Captain, so that you will be successful for us. And for you and the lady as well,” she said.
He thought for a second she’d just added that last bit, but he couldn’t tell, of course.
“Ma’am, what is it you need done—I’d best know about it in its entirety before I can truly help. Oh, and I want Bram here too, Ma’am, if that’s allowed?”
She nodded and waved at a far aide who had been standing alone way down the room’s length, and from a door down there, Lieutenant Bram Sander entered the room and walked up with a grin to shake his hand first.
“Oops, sorry, Captain,” he said as he snapped to attention and saluted.
Tanner grinned, saluted back, and patted the sofa beside him.
“Ma’am, if only you could provide the lady in such fashion, with all our issues worked out too—that’d truly be a great day,” he said ruefully.
She nodded and turned a palm upward toward him. “Some things for we Issians are easier than others—but I can tell you that before you leave Eons and this duty mission, you will be back spending nights on the BN Sterling,” she said, and Tanner almost blushed.
“So to our circumstances now and the back story behind them,” she said, launching a long tale about the uppermost echelon of the Issian sect and its Inner Circle that governed Eons too. It took her almost an hour to explain what she had to teach Tanner, and Bram learned much at the same time.
When she got to the current situation, and the issue of the Twins Cooperative and Kendal, the part about Mariam also came to light. She wasn’t proud of that and tried to downplay the Issian culpability in the issue, but Tanner couldn’t not ask about it, digging deeper into their guilt. The fact that the Issians played god with this kind of method to strengthen their Inner Circle members was one thing—but that they had messed it up was beyond his ken.
“Ma’am, wait. If the Inner Circle has nine members and all of you are the living twin except for one, then I have to ask, what happened with this Mariam. Did you not explain that the one twin is—what did you call it—culled from the two? That even you had a twin that was stillborn? So Mariam ... what happened there?” he asked, and he was not happy with what he’d just learned.
She nodded and sipped her tea one more time. “It was an oversight that the twin was not stillborn is all I can say, as it happened early in our process of the weaning of the twins, and no one really knows how that happened. It cannot happen anymore, as our medical group and our Inner Circle team handle this with ease—not that the taking of a life is anything but sadness. Yet, it does protect our Issian way of life,” she said, and her tone, Tanner thought, was still a bit self-serving.
“So I take it then that this Kendal is the issue? But she’s located up on the moon—and the event is in, what, three weeks at the academy—what’s the problem then that you will need help with?”
“Mostly, we want you to learn anything extra that you can—I believe you call it recon, correct?”
He nod
ded.
“Then we’d just ask for that—we want you at the event, and we want you as knowledgeable as possible—can we ask for that help?” she said as she looked at him.
He again nodded and smiled. “I don’t know much yet, Master—but I will learn as much as I can. You, Bram—anything to add?” he asked quietly.
Bram shook his head and said, “Not a thing, Sir. That is what is needed …”
Tanner got up and went to the window to once again look out at the farm far below.
Above it, yet below where he stood, a hawk, a square-winged bird of prey floated above the deserted paddock and corrals, looking for food. It knew certainly how to hover, twist and float so that it had maximum time to look down and study the ground cover for its next meal. As Tanner watched, the bird slowly made its way farther and farther away, gliding and floating away…
#####
The big deal, Kendal thought, about this kind of event was that it got almost no notice from the press—vids, papers, and publishers saw the normal meetings here at the Aporia City Council as boring. Who came, who said what, what budget funds were allotted for this or that—not a single thing was ever new or newsworthy, she thought, hence the usual lack of media folks.
“And this time is the same,” she said to herself, as she looked up at the top rows in the press gallery and noted that she and her aides had been able to get all of two of them there in the room to cover the new budget decisions on the MedWard construction. The single vid network camera was pointing at her delegation right now, and since she hadn’t as yet been asked for an interview, she fumed.
The real message, she knew, was to listen to her upcoming speech.
She knew—well, she at least had heard—that the MedWards were now going to be newly enlarged, and that would mean that the city would have to earmark funds for just that construction. They would be discussing today what amounts would be put aside for this. And not a bit of talk or discussion as to what those funds were doing—propagating the whole issue of what the MedWards did and why that was important to Aporia and Eons too.
She settled even farther down in her seat and read the quick messages that came in from her aides in front of city hall.
Two were out front with more than three dozen twins, all bearing signs and holding up placards that read “No Money for Terrorists!!!”
They were stopping everyone they could, handing out flyers that pointed out the facts that the MedWard doctors were dupes of the Issian Inner Circle. These doctors were a part of a larger conspiracy to help keep the Inner Circle in charge of the future of the Issians and the Adepts too. The MedWards, if enlarged, would do even more harm to the Issian way of life.
Besides the protesters, of course, were the Provost guards who were in charge of security here at city hall—and there was a larger contingent now doing picket duty along the walkways into the building. Anyone could still enter, as they kept the protesters apart from them, and that too was causing a scene she could see on her tablet.
“Change over to the local network,” an aide in the row ahead of her said, and as she did so, she noted that one of the Provost guards on the vid feed was boxed in by six protesters—all twins, all female, and all pushing him backward against the flower bed behind him. While there was no real assault, he stepped back right onto the flowers to get some distance between him and them, and the vid feed showed the damage to the flowers in living color.
“Nice,” Kendal said, and as she looked down at the council floor, she saw that the Agenda posted on the far screen now showed that the meeting had moved to her area of interest, and she turned off her tablet to listen carefully.
Someone from the riding where the MedWards were located, Riding Five, she thought, was rising to speak and said, in what she’d call a typical politico speech, that the MedWards construction was a needed item for them to simply rubber-stamp today. The new enlargement of the facilities would be looked upon favorably by all of Aporia, and he supported this fully. The fact that Kendal knew, as did most of the people here in the council chambers, that this politician would gain more—much more riding revenues too. This was a simple case of pork, and she almost snorted right out loud but stifled it quickly.
More rose from other ridings. All were in favor of the expansion of the MedWards and all said so.
The council clerk let each of the various council representatives speak and then looked over to the mayor and said, “Mister Mayor, our listed speakers on council is complete. We now move to allow the public list of authorized speakers. Calling speaker number one on the verified list, one Nelson Corbett of Riding Five? Please come forward …” she said.
The room quieted as an older gentleman got up from the very front row of the public seating and went down to the microphone placed at one end of the big horseshoe-shaped council table. He tapped the microphone twice and then began to talk in a very soft voice, and someone on the council interrupted him almost immediately and asked if he could please speak up louder.
He nodded and then went on at the same volume to list his own grievances about the new MedWard construction—most of which made actual real sense, Kendal thought. It would be very, very intensive construction with high noise levels within the Dome itself. The lack of real foresight in this regard, the man said, meant there was going to be a ton of extras to fix mistakes and errors, and the construction would last far too long. He finished his five allotted minutes with a plea that such construction should not be allowed and asked the council to not fund the project at all.
The council clerk nodded, made some notes on her tablet, and then said, “Speaker number two is Kendal Steyn, of Riding One,” and Kendal rose to take her own place at the microphone. She didn’t take any notes or her tablet at all; instead, she grasped the microphone stand with both hands. and in a very strident and loud voice she spoke.
“You must not fund this MedWards construction—as it would be funding terrorists.”
Gasps echoed from some in the room. Not a single council member, however, said or did anything but stare at her.
“You all know me—Kendal Steyn—and I run the Twins Cooperative group storefront grassroots organization here in Aporia. We know what you all do not know that the Issian Inner Circle controls the MedWards and their medical staff. And that the Inner Circle is killing twins—via the doctors at the MedWards too. We know that. You all know that. What we then want to know is—why would you fund this kind of Issian terrorism?” she said, and she stopped and looked at each and every single one of the council members still staring at her.
“A part of my five minutes, we were told, would allow us to play a short vid—please direct your attention to the screen,” she said, as it suddenly darkened and then everyone was looking inside the MedWard room of a patient, who was tied down—restrained the doctors called it—to her bed.
She was facing the other way from the camera, but her tangled hair was knotted and very unkempt.
Her bare skinny legs jutted out from below the gown, her leg hair was long, and her toenails were long, curled under the toes, and a dull yellow.
She was tossing one arm trying to get it loose, but the tie-downs were solid, and she failed again and again.
As her head thrashed, the camera could see she had an open sore on the close temple. Pus was caked on the sore and dried up blood surrounded it.
Then she turned her head over to face the camera.
And it was Kendal's face.
Ragged and ravaged and ugly, but it was Kendal's face, now frozen on screen at the end of the video.
The gasp from the council chamber room was loud and very audible.
“That is my twin—Mariam. Our mother was Master Colleen, one of the Inner Council more than forty years ago. She was pregnant and the Inner Council tried to take her embryo and make twins. They succeeded and yes, I’m the one who got her sister’s share of all things that make one human. But instead of being stillborn, Mariam was born as you see her now. There but not there. Alive
but not alive, and a prisoner in the MedWard for decades now,” she said flatly.
“This is why you must not fund this terrorist project,” she said flatly and was silent.
As the single media person continued to film, not a word was said in the council chambers. Two still photographers who’d taken closer seats were already in the way, butting past the few Provost guards who were trying to keep things neat and orderly, but that video of Mariam still was frozen on the screen. The photographers were shooting the screen and Mariam and then shooting her too, to compare, she thought.
The mayor banged his gavel over and over, and more than five of the city councilors had risen to be recognized so that they could speak to this troublesome news to no avail. The clerk herself had heard something that obviously bothered her too, as she fled her desk, it seemed, but then she opened up a side wall door, and more Provost guards entered and took up stations around the council chambers.
Kendal just stood at the microphone.
She had made the choice just days ago to publicize her sister’s imprisonment, to let the RIM know of what the Inner Circle was up to in order to keep its power.
She knew that not a single question would be asked of her.
She knew that the frozen face of her twin, Mariam, on screen still looking down at the chamber itself, would speak for her.
She knew that this would be all over the airwaves, press, newspapers, and even perhaps Gallipedia too.
She’d already uploaded the video of her sister’s bondage to the Twins Cooperative page there, and she knew that later today the analytics would show her what kind of a response her tactics here today would bear...
#####
Bram walked with Tanner to the flyer at the Dessau landing port and smiled as they got to his little blue flyer. They were in the middle of discussing the meeting they’d just had with the Master Adept when Tanner’s PDA rang on his wrist.
