was afraid to confront her. Why is our medical science still so reluctant to treat mental injuries?"
"She blamed him for their son's death," Horss said. He realized now who Denna was. The wife of an important artist. The subject of famous portraits. And the forever-grieving mother of a dead son.
"She blamed herself, or else she wouldn't have suffered so," Mai said and turned around to face Horss. She frowned. "How can the Navy justify detaining Pan?"
"Can you imagine," Horss asked, "anyone denying the Navy Commander anything he wants?"
"Why would he want Pan?"
"Let me tell you what happened when Pan met Demba." Horss told Mai everything he'd heard from Pan prior to his departure.
"Pan thought he was becoming someone else," Mai then said. "There are reasons why people try to stay on Earth. I always knew Pan was someone else. Doctor Mnro - as legend has it - can parse a person's DNA by sight and smell. I have some of that talent myself. When I first came to Earth and met Pan as a patient, I suspected he wasn't exactly what his genetic record said he was. But how could I question the integrity of the Clinic's database?"
"I don't think that was what he meant," Horss said. "It was memories of being someone he didn't know he'd been. My guess is that Pan has proved to be a very interesting individual. He has a connection to Demba, and Etrhnk wants time to investigate him."
"Nevertheless," Mai said, "I'm fairly certain Pan didn't realize he was not mainly Essiin. He looks Earthian but he's mainly Rhyan."
"You broke some Clinic rules?" Horss hoped Miss Perfect wasn't so perfect.
"I had to know. I did the analysis, ignoring the Clinic's records. I had to assume Pan was special in some way to the Mnro Clinic. Almost every time I have him in the clinic for an injury or routine examination, the next day I'll get a call from Doctor Mnro herself, wanting to know how he is. And if he doesn't get seen by the Clinic for more than a year, I'll also get a call from her. Pan thinks Doctor Mnro simply loves the Mother Earth Opera. It must be more than that. I think I'm the only Clinic director who talks so regularly with Doctor Mnro. Pan must be important to her. If she knew Etrhnk was holding him, she'd do something about it."
"You should call her," Horss urged.
"If he isn't home by tonight I will."
1-21 An Algebra of Ethics
"One of the most beautiful sights in the universe, not only because of pattern and color, but because of its history and its mystery. Instantly recognized by everyone. The most hospitable planet known, even in its damaged state. Yet, it's a dangerous place, even lethal."
Navy Commander Etrhnk turned to face his guest and motioned for the armed Marine escort to leave them in private. He examined the Opera Master visually and with other sensors to see there was no obvious physical injury to him. He was uncomfortable in detaining Pan and restricted in how he could use forced interrogation. This long into his term as Navy Commander, he was losing trust in his barbarian staff.
"I'm performing a small experiment," Etrhnk added.
/
Pan waited as the Marines departed. He waited for Etrhnk to say more, his troubled mind unaware how talkative Etrhnk seemed. Behind Etrhnk, Earth - the subject of his brief discourse - was a thin crescent, its night side glowing palely in reflected moonlight.
Pan said nothing. He didn't resent his imprisonment. He didn't wonder at Etrhnk's purposes. He hardly had room in his turbulent thoughts to consider anything other than the visions that erupted from some hidden volcano of burning-real imagery.
"In your brief absence from Earth much has happened down there," Etrhnk continued, turning away from Pan, leaving him at his back. "The artist's residence had a transmat visitor just after nightfall, then two more soon after. A fire started when the second visitors arrived. Two structures were destroyed. I had already sent down a probe. It observed the violent deaths of a woman and a dog."
Pan's mental turmoil subsided at Etrhnk's mention of deaths. He found his voice. "A dog? Gator? A woman died?"
"Perhaps you would care to see."
The view of crescent Earth ceased, replaced by a terrestrial scene illuminated by firelight. The perspective rushed toward distant human figures standing between burning buildings. The flight of the probe halted, the picture stabilized, and the field of view adjusted to include the appearance of another person from around the side of one blazing structure.
"Rafael," Pan said, seeing his old friend, apparently injured, hobble into the scene carrying a stick of wood.
The scene froze as all participants became visible: Rafael stumbling toward Denna who had her back to him; Demba starting to rush toward Denna; Gator collapsed on the ground; Samson bouncing on one leg, his eyes wide with fright; Daidaunkh sprawled on the ground and injured, staring in agony at Demba; the flames paused in their feast of home and art; the night forest illuminated by the inferno into a backdrop for violence.
"This is the woman who will die." Etrhnk pointed to Denna in her sparkling dress. "Do you know her?"
"Yes." Denna is going to die? She is already dead, then? But, in a sense, Denna has been dead for many years.
"If you don't wish to see what happens, we can stop here."
"Stop." Remember Denna as a child. Remember her as Rafael's wife. Remember her as a good mother. Remember her always.
"I overheard a subsequent conversation," Etrhnk said, "in which the artist said his wife wouldn't want to be restored to life."
"You didn't interfere," Pan struggled to respond, mourning Denna.
"You would have?"
"She was my adopted daughter!"
"Then I have erred."
"You may add yourself to a long list of others who failed to help Denna." Pan felt the ache of grief hurt his throat. The final death of Denna ended an era. He would mourn her with less restraint when he had the necessary privacy, but it would be difficult to wait.
Etrhnk allowed some time to pass before he spoke again, as if he was actually sensitive to Pan's emotional state. "I analyzed the action and I believe the death was accidental. Admiral Demba seemed poised to disarm the woman. The artist was apparently trying to distract the woman by striking her on the back. Unfortunately, the artist stumbled and the woman moved the wrong way. The blow broke her neck. Your daughter was the wife of Rafael de LaGuardia. Some of the most famous paintings in Earthian culture bear her likeness. But she was of dark African ancestry and not as pale as we see her here."
"Denna suffered a great personal tragedy." The effort to force words around the mounting grief agonized Pan's throat. "She was never dark-skinned again, never the woman in Rafael's finest paintings, as if that was some reminder or some other cause for the pain and guilt she felt."
"You sent Admiral Demba to the artist because she is African, as was his wife."
"Do the Essiin in any way appreciate the emotional content of life?" Pan asked. "I once thought I knew that was true."
"Are we not all the same humans in the deepest analysis?" Etrhnk asked. "Perhaps we who starve ourselves of it appreciate emotion more than do Earthians and Rhyans. When dealing with such humans, it's a vital type of data to analyze, yet I do it poorly."
"Why is this vital?" Pan should not have asked. He only wanted the meeting with Etrhnk to end now.
"Things are happening," Etrhnk stated. "I understand little of it. I need to understand all of it. I think it goes deeper yet than our mysterious admiral."
"You suspect the boy is more important than Demba?" Pan wondered. "Have you learned anything about Samson?"
"I've not even learned anything more about you, sir. Except that your resistance to interrogation seems a little beyond the state of the art."
"The gaps in my consciousness have been busy times for your staff?"
"You don't remember?"
"Would I want to?"
"I think not. I don't do this out of idle curiosity or perversion. For a person in my position, ignorance can be fatal."
"I no longer know how it is with Essiin," Pan said, "but
other humans want more and more from life, so something is always missing, even though they may not know what it is. We place a high value on continued existence, as though the wanting of things and a long life in which to want them are a single logical force. But we should know it's wrong to harm others simply as a matter of insurance toward those goals."
"To place my actions in ethical perspective," Etrhnk said, "you have to know many things I can't tell you. I didn't mean to imply that my own life is more sacred than any others. It isn't. To even begin an ethical evaluation of our circumstances we have to find common ground at the root of our beliefs about life and existence."
"It isn't that complicated for me, Admiral! Treat others as you would want to be treated!"
"It is a simple rule with which I largely agree, but it assumes too much about one's own desires. A simpler rule is to be kind to others. Too few of us can live by rules of any sort. We are imperfect and often lazy. Life is always more complicated than we can manage. Compromise is inevitable."
"I used to believe in an algebra of ethics," Pan said, almost wearily, "even though it seemed too much like politics. I killed my mother because I thought ethics was more complicated than the Golden Rule. The trouble with complex ethics is that you can't predict whether ethically questionable actions will produce an ethical outcome. Nor can you entirely justify a good result that came from a bad action. I apologize for the lecture but I feel more than qualified to give and receive such."
Admiral Etrhnk didn't
Keshona Far Freedom Part 1 Page 37
