Manna

by Lee Correy

  “I don’t care for the credit line,” I remarked after a moment, “because tomorrow the world will ask me what I’ve done for it lately. Sic transit gloria mundi. It’s nice to know, but that and a tally will buy me a shot of supaku. And if it’s a new game, we’d better get busy figuring out the rules.”

  “This time,” The General promised, “we’ll help make the rules.”

  “Maybe, maybe.” And maybe the last few weeks had made me cynical, or perhaps I was suffering from too much tension, not enough sleep, meals on the run, and trying to juggle seventeen balls in the air at once.

  It was time stop stalling and do my duty while The General was still present. “I…I’m sorry about Wahak,” I tried to express my sympathy, but it came out in trite and halting words.

  She smiled in spite of the fact that it probably hurt her to do so. “We all are. But Wahak died fighting. He didn’t stand there and wait to be killed. Do you know what happened in the museum, Sendi?”

  “No, I haven’t really wanted to talk about it with anyone.”

  “I want to talk about it because I’m proud of what happened! When we heard you shoot in the stairs, Kariander Dok gave the order to use us as human shields for the triumvirate’s escape. Kokat was scared and got reckless when he unchained Wahak. My husband killed him and released Chervit who released me…”

  “Uh, look, it’s difficult to talk…” I began. I was the one who was finding it difficult.

  “Difficult? Why?” Vaivan said with her eyes suddenly sparkling. “You had the difficult job, Sendi. You didn’t know what was happening but you tried to save us anyway. You did. You made Dok panic. That made it possible for us to free ourselves and fight.”

  I couldn’t imagine it. “Vaivan, you’d been physically and mentally tortured for over a week. How’d you have the strength to do anything?”

  “What’s preferable? To wait to be killed as cattle strung up for slaughter in an abattoir? Or to fight and die like human beings?”

  “If one acts like a slave, one will be treated like a slave,” The General said.

  “It was a fair fight.” Vaivan slowly worked the fingers of her hands under their synflesh to exercise the healing tendons.

  “Fair?” I wasn’t sure what her concept of “fair” was.

  “Fair. Dok and I were both armed. It began equally and ended humanely,” Vaivan said, then explained, “If Dok had survived, Stoa Silut and the Board of Jurisprudence might have sentenced him to public hanging or dismemberment and beheading.”

  “But I thought the only capital punishment here was hanging.”

  The General remarked, “Based on the nature of the crime, the Board of Jurisprudence may sentence an outlander to be punished under Commonwealth law or the law of the offender’s native land. It gives them latitude.”

  “As for Heinrich von Undine, Wahak was merciful, too,” Vaivan went on, the brightness gone from her eyes and replaced with a rather grim look. “Von Undine was from the German enclave that remains at Dar-es-Salaam. The Board of Jurisprudence would’ve had the option of using his nation-of-origin’s punishment for sexual offenses. In spite of all he did to me, that punishment is more than any man should face. That’s why I wanted to get him first, but President Nogal was closer.”

  The General stood up. Perhaps he wanted Vaivan and me to be alone. I wasn’t sure that’s what I wanted. His presence made this far more comfortable for me. “Please excuse me. There is work to do. We don’t have to rebuild our Commonwealth, but we do have to repair it. Sendi, you’re no longer my deputy. You have your own distinguished career and the family ties to cement it. Spaclmpy Induna Chervit served to the end and died with honor, iklawa in hand. You’re his logical successor with a recent combat record to justify your permanent promotion and appointment. They’ll be announced tomorrow.”

  I sighed. “General, I’m sick of fighting. I’m resigning for the second time this year. I think I’d be a better historian.”

  “And I’m the archaeologist who was a better warrior,” General Anegam Vamori pointed out. “Sendi, don’t resist the profession in which you’re outstanding. I resisted once when I became a leader rather than the scientist I wanted to be. I was an unhappy man. Then I discovered it was possible to be what I’m good at and what I wanted to be. Sendi, the ability to do anything well is a prize beyond price that many people long to possess.”

  He started to walk away, then turned to add, “Sendi, I won’t always be here. Long ago I exhausted my right to live. Someday I must get out of the way of young people such as yourself. It may be the best thing left for me to do. However, you’ll carry on. For that knowledge, an old man is very, very happy.”

  I watched him descend the steps from the porch and walk in a surprisingly spry manner down the graveled drive to disappear into the conifers.

  Neither Vaivan nor I said anything for minutes.

  “I’m glad you came to see me, Sendi,” Vaivan repeated.

  “Well, I wanted to make sure you were okay. Losing Wahak is a difficult thing. I know.”

  “How can you know, Sendi?”

  I sighed and told her, “Because I’ve done this before when a fellow pilot bought it. The waiting wife had to be told…and she’d been waiting for it and hoping against hope maybe for years. Vaivan, these ‘widow calls’ don’t get any easier. I’ve made too many and I don’t want to make any more.”

  “This is different, Sendi.”

  “How?”

  “Wahak didn’t die far away from everyone he loved and who loved him. He died with me, fighting for me and for everyone else there. It wasn’t pleasant. But, oh, am I proud of that man!”

  Wahak had been such a quiet, peaceful, almost pliant person. He’d also been a highly civilized man because he controlled the basic savage that’s in all of us. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “I understand him.”

  “Many people did.”

  “I also underestimated the Commonwealth and its people…”

  “Some people did that, too.” Vaivan looked squarely at me and told me, “And I underestimated you, Sendi. If you hadn’t convinced Rutledge with your honesty, the powersats would be pumping hell beams now. If you hadn’t gone to GEO Base One to gain some time, the Tripartite wouldn’t have seen that they were up against people of principle which made the cost of winning greater than the price of co-existence. And without your assault from space, this civil war could have dragged on in killing and misery for years…”

  “I had lots of help. And our people really won this one at Dehkar Gorge, Oidak, Vamori-Free, and Topawa Centrum. I can’t take credit for a bit of it.”

  “Oh, there were great acts of gallantry and courage in all the impys,” Vaivan admitted.

  “But when you took Vamori Free Space Port you made it appear to the enemy that you could bring down infinite reserves and materiel from space. It was almost supernatural…magic…god-like.”

  “Exodus Sixteen,” I told her. “And several others.”

  “Yes, but you did it.”

  “With the help of others, including your idealistic, emotional twin brother…but he’s exactly the sort of man we need on our frontier. There’s a lot to be done out there, and he’s the best man for it. He leads people well although he’s no military man. He thought he was until the Vamori-Free mission. There’s a lot of his grandfather in him.”

  “That’s where he gets his idealism, Sendi.”

  “And lots of your grandfather in you, too.”

  “Probably, but it’s the other side of him that’s my genetic inheritance, I think.” Vaivan suddenly looked intensely at me with those beautiful dark eyes of hers. “And you’re the mirror image of my grandfather.”

  “I don’t agree with him or with you on that.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference whether you do or not. You are who you are. We’ll need the mirror image of The General now that we’re in a new game.”

  “Don’t you think we should wait to
see what history has to say?”

  Vaivan managed to shake her head in spite of the synflesh around her throat. “Sendi, you know history, but General Vamori understands it. If I may quote our prophet, ‘History doesn’t repeat itself; historians merely repeat each other.’ ”

  “You may be right.” It was a phrase I used when I didn’t want to argue pending a further study. “But, Vaivan, you used the term, ‘our prophet.’ This part of the world has produced some of the world’s leaders, but no prophets until now. Isn’t it rather ironic it produced General Anegam Vamori?”

  Vaivan smiled. It was a strained smile, and I knew it bothered her although accu-blocks were eliminating pain. “To repeat what our prophet says about that, ‘The times encourage the man of the times to change the times.’ ”

  “Who’s going to write the holy book?” I asked.

  “What holy book?”

  “Well, if history is a guide, somebody will write down the sayings of The General as the prophet of plenty,” I explained, “and it will become dogma for the new religion.”

  “Sendi, all we have to do is take the words of other prophets and synthesize them into the new holy book…”

  “So what else is new? How did all the other holy books of the world come to be?”

  Vaivan was quiet for a moment, then asked, “When are you going to start writing it?”

  “That’s up to someone else. There are other things for me to do.”

  “Are you so sure?”

  “About what?”

  “Military men usually write their memoirs. What are those other than history? You told The General you’d make a better historian. Perhaps you’re the one who should document this year of twenty-fifty A. D. in the Commonwealth.”

  “I might, but not for that reason. We stopped Space War Two, but the hell beams are still there. The mass drivers and catapults didn’t play a role, but they could throw rocks in future wars. We’ll be moving planetoids soon, and a planetoid’s the ultimate planet-busting terror weapon. Until The General’s philosophy of plenty becomes fully understood and followed, somebody will try to twist these technologies for military use.”

  “Sendi, you use the word ‘military’ as an evil qualifier, a word with negative semantic charge. It doesn’t have to be.”

  “That’s bothered me for years” I unloaded on her. It was a paradox that haunted my professional life. Tsaya with her scientific outlook wouldn’t understand it, but Vaivan might because she had a working knowledge of the real world. “We need technology desperately, but how can we keep it from being used for destructive military purposes? How?”

  “I don’t know why it bothers you,” she replied without hesitation. “We’ve managed to do it. You do it yourself, Sendi. The destructive aspects of military activities can be kept in check and eventually overcome only by military professionalism itself. We honor the warrior because we’re all warriors unafraid to fight if we really have to…although you didn’t think we would. You didn’t know that one of the principles we’re taught came from your first president who was a prophet in his own right. We had to learn his words by heart, and it’s the basis for our custom of carrying iklawas: if we desire to avoid insult we must be ready to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful institutions of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.”

  “It’s a different world in America today,” I observed.

  “Not really. It still produces people like you, Sendi. It just lost its momentum, and we were swept into the vacuum that was created. So were you.”

  “Be that as it may, Vaivan, my job now is to use the knowledge and experience I’ve got to keep all hell from breaking loose.”

  “Don’t you believe Peter Rutledge feels the same way?”

  I nodded.

  “We aren’t alone.”

  “But we’ve got very powerful adversaries. The Tripartite and the other power groups aren’t going to go away.”

  “But they respect us now.” She thought a moment, then added, “We’ve changed the world power balance, and it’ll take time for the new system to stop ringing from the sudden change. We’ll exploit that because we know it’s happening. We’ll also exploit the most valuable resource we’ve got: brainpower. We’re the first to know the system’s open. And we’re the first to make use of it. Sendi, it won’t be easy, but do you have a better picture of how you fit into the scheme of things now?”

  “Yes.” Then I asked, “But what about you, Vaivan? You’ve helped me. How can I help you? Can I help you?”

  “I’ve spent the long hours of the past day or so bringing myself up to date on what happened. It made it easier for me. I know what you did. I know what everybody did. But we’ve got to go on from here. Life goes on. I’ll survive, Sendi.”

  I’d seen it before: the squaring of the shoulders, the head held proudly high, the announcement to the world of the intention to forge bravely onward in spite of everything while the inner grief gnawed. At least, I thought this was the same. That’s why when Vaivan reached out her bandaged hand to me, I took it even though I abhor the feeling of cool, synthetic synflesh.

  “If you mean to provide solace and sympathy to the widow of a valorous man,” she told me levelly, “don’t neglect the fact that our family ties are very strong. In fact, you’re a family member.” She sat back and looked out at the lovely mountains. “I know you’re ‘family because every member of my family has been to see me to share grief. But I think you came for other reasons, Sendi.”

  I said nothing. I couldn’t.

  The beauty of this incredible woman was more than what was hidden by surgical dressings and synflesh coverings, and it radiated from her as she went on, “You’re the product of a puritanical culture, Sendi. There’s nothing wrong with that. But you Americans are frustrated romantics because of it. On the other hand, we’re logical people trapped in a romantic culture. I don’t know which is worse, but all people have their problems.”

  Her radiance was too much for me. I couldn’t contain myself, so I blurted out, “Dammit, I’m a newly and happily married man with a lovely, beautiful, talented wife! But I’ve also been deeply in love with you, Vaivan, since the first moment I saw you! And I’ve grown to love you more and more as I’ve gotten to know you! I held back because you were a married woman. Now I’ve got to continue to hold back because I’m the married one! But I had to tell you! I wanted to tell you but I couldn’t. I was afraid to tell you, and I forced myself to come here today on the pretext of duty.”

  “Oh, I’m glad you did, Sendi. It’s been a time of war, and we haven’t had time to talk of love…but I love you, too.”

  I got up. “I’d better go now…”

  I was at the edge of the porch before she called out to me, “Sendi, you’re being provincial.”

  I turned to face her. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything.

  “My dearest Sendi,” she went on, “we’re a free people because we have a philosophy of abundance for everyone. Within the bounds of civil behavior, freedom also means there are few moral restrictions outside one’s religion, if you have one. A free person’s morality is based on what’s right without harming others. What do you think is right for you, for Tsaya, and for me?”

  “I don’t know. The more I learn about this place, the more confused I get.”

  “Let me see if I can help. Tsaya told you to come and knows you’re here, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And all three of us realize we live in a world that has plenty of everything for everyone, correct?”

  “I’m not sure I can grasp all of the implications of The General’s philosophy yet, especially when it’s applied to what you’re leading up to.”

  “It’s close to Muslim beliefs concerning the relationships between men and women: chivalry and its derivative, romantic love, but without the limits imposed by philosophies of scarcity. If a person, man or woman, can do justice to more th
an one mate, what’s immoral about it?”

  “This is a world of abundance, Sendi, and that includes love…”

  Vaivan held out both her bandaged hands to me. “Sendi Boldwon, Tsaya and I know you’re capable of providing unlimited love and respect. You’re a free person in a universe of abundance. Something may still be rare, but it no longer has to be scarce, moapa.”

  I should end these memoirs as they began: in Topawa with flags flying, soldiers marching in the streets, and shops and schools closed. A year from the day I set foot in the United Mitanni Commonwealth, it was again a holiday, but things had changed.

  Oh, how they’d changed! We’d survived our first great challenge and ordeal.

  And I’d come through my own as well.

  Celebrations, holidays, and other social functions are the glue that holds people together in their social institutions. I used to dislike ceremonies and celebrations until I went through the culture shock of the Commonwealth. Now their meanings are more clear to me.

  The Sunday parade at the Academy in which the cadets march in ancient uniforms and obsolete military formations reminds them and the spectators of the thread of history that’s never really broken.

  Although Christmas and New Years’ are now almost universally celebrated as altered versions of ancient ceremonial holy days, the Commonwealth celebrates them for new reasons as well.

  But I wasn’t in the Commonwealth that day to be part of the celebration there.

  I insisted on participating in a special celebration.

  We unveiled a plaque of Kulala gold on the outside of the Commonwealth L-5 module so that it faced the entire Universe.

  ASTRABAD

  named for

  OMER KOLIL ASTRABADI

  2025 - 2050

  in honor of

  all those who performed to their limits

  to free the human race

  from the bondage of limits.

  Trite. Schmaltzy. Melodramatic.