Vincalis the Agitator

by Holly Lisle

  “A whole order of magnitude?” the Master of Cities said with wonder in his eyes. “A hundred thousand luns per unit instead of ten thousand. You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. And it’s constant per unit—no factoring for size, age, or health.”

  “Good gods,” Rone said. “We’re only getting ten thousand LPU in controlled settings right now. With a constant, we could stop worrying about undersized units throwing off our power estimates. We would be able to tell exactly how much available power we had at any time.”

  “There’s a downside,” Chrissa said. “It’s a big one.”

  “Bigger than the rewhah factor?”

  Chrissa nodded. “We’d be burning souls.”

  The debate ran a long time. They needed the energy, needed it badly. And their two options were to use more people, which meant rewriting laws that made into capital crimes things that were currently minor infractions, so that they could fill up the Warrens with fresh prisoners; or to use the people they already had more completely.

  Kenyan finally said, “It isn’t like the Warreners are real people—they don’t think from the moment they’re born until the moment they die— we’ve seen to that. They’re nothing but caged and cared-for animals—no feelings, no ideas, no dreams. That they have souls at all is a wonder, but that we can use those souls to provide a better life for real people is a gift. A true gift.”

  Chrissa wasn’t appeased. “And what about the prisoners that we put into the Warrens? They were real people once.”

  “We only send in the life-criminals. I’ve always thought the comfortable oblivion of the Warrens was too kind a treatment for the horrors they perpetrate on citizens. Look at what they’ve done and tell me— what kind of souls could they have, anyway? Evil souls. If we can feed the good of the city with the loss of evil souls, then we are in effect turning evil into good.”

  “You’ll find a way to justify anything, won’t you,” Chrissa asked.

  Rone held up a hand. “In this instance, I have to agree with Kenyan. We have to find energy to protect and maintain the Empire. Our other alternative is to put more people into the Warrens, enlarge the Warrens, use people who aren’t nightmare criminals or the animals we’ve been breeding for this purpose for the last thousand-plus years. If we broaden our spectrum of people we’re willing to have in the Warrens, where will our broadening stop? Our energy needs will grow. They must. We can keep moving our breeders around to prevent inbreeding and keep our reproductive rates high. We can move more criminals who have done less to deserve punishment into the Warrens. We can take the rebels and the traitors out of the mines and factories and feed them into the Warrens. But even so, our need for energy is expanding, and our space for new Warrens is not. This alternative you’ve given allows us to make incredible use of limited resources. It isn’t pretty. We’ll certainly have to design specialized facilities to handle this new form of energy. But I think it’s the best alternative we’re going to get.”

  Chrissa slumped back in her seat, disgusted and defeated. “Fine. Rone—I’ll have the specifications and incantations couriered to your workroom as soon as I leave here. I want you to look over our research, see what I’ve seen and noted on this in the past twenty years of develpment, and then decide if you still think it’s a good idea. With the power-to-rewhah curves in front of you, you might just change your mind. If you don’t, you and your people should be able to put together a quick patch in the next day or two—I’m sure you’ll have long-term facilities set up in no time.” She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. Then she stood. “And as soon as you’ve received the information, you’ll receive my formal resignation. I’ve considered going into private practice—I think I’ve just reached the point where I can’t do this job anymore. I’ll send along my recommendations for successors from within the Research Department, some of whom are quite excited about the possibilities of this project. I’m sure you’ll each have favorites of your own you would like to consider, too.”

  “You’re quitting?” Rone asked, stunned. Chrissa was second in line for Grand Mastership of the Dragons of the Hars—no one who held the second spot had ever quit. It would be like being one step from godhood and turning down the job.

  “I’m quitting. This isn’t something I can keep on my conscience. We’ve pursued this line of research against my personal recommendations, because influential researchers below me outvoted me; I presented the option hoping against hope that one of you would offer some alternative—a way of reducing energy consumption, of conserving the resources we currently have, of doing something sensible. But you are set on expansion, and you will have your added power. I just won’t be a part of it.”

  “Chrissa …” Jonn Dart, as Master of Air, specialized in developing and improving the special spells that kept the floating cities and the air-cars aloft. His unit always had energy expenditures far above those in other units, and though he and his people had become quite good at economizing, their work was a massive energy drain. “Are you going to leave Oel Maritias? Or Oel Artis? Are you going to confine yourself to the dirt, to ground transport and ground housing, and turn your back on the wonders and the artistry and the beauty we have wrought in true civilization?”

  Chrissa rose, gathered up her things, and looked at him with pain in her eyes. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I just know that we shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “It isn’t voted on yet,” offered the Master of Cities.

  “No. Shall I wait for the vote to be counted to see who among you are secret advocates for the poor and the defenseless?”

  “There are no poor and no defenseless involved in this,” Rone protested. “Only lab animals who wear almost-human skins—though you have seen them in the flesh, and you know how little they resemble real people—and criminals who have caused so much suffering that they have been exiled from humanity.” He rose so that he stood facing Chrissa and, with a voice carefully controlled but edged with anger, said, “The Hars is the most humanitarian government this world has ever seen. No one starves in our Empire. No one goes without food, without clothing, without a solid roof or a place to sleep. No one is without an education. For the poorest people, we pay for everything. Even the Warreners, whose ancestors were gathered from the gutters and the madhouses and the prisons, have food and water, beds and shelter, clothing and protection, supplied by us from cradle to grave. They want for nothing, and they want nothing, and they live long lives.”

  “And you burn them as fuel in payment for your ‘generosity.’ And now you will be burning not just what is mortal about them, but what is immortal, too. Do not be too quick to applaud yourselves for your generosity—for your humanitarianism. Not everyone in this world is equal, Rone.”

  “Equality is a myth. A fantasy of dreamers and revolutionaries. We do the best we can. There are always costs. But I think we have done well in keeping our costs within reason, and offering good to the most people for the least price.”

  “If you and yours were the ones who had to pay the price, I suspect that you would think it a little less reasonable.” She gave a formal bow to all of them—coldly precise, almost insulting in its perfection—and said, “I won’t wait for the results of your vote. I’ll simply go and ready the information you will need. And will, in the meantime, come up with a suitable story for my sudden resignation.”

  She left, and in the wake of the slamming of the door, the Dragon Masters of the Hars sat in quiet contemplation.

  Finally, however, the Grand Master of the Dragon Council, who until this time had been silent, rose and said, “A vote must be called. We have a quorum present, and due to the severity of the situation we face, and the way that history will judge what we do here, I hereby declare that we require not a simple majority but a two-thirds majority in the question we must now answer. Before we bring the question before this body, you have heard discussion both for and against the use of this new form of energy. Does anyone among you have anything furthe
r you wish to add?”

  No one spoke. No one moved. To Rone’s eyes, it seemed they barely breathed.

  The Grand Master nodded. “Then I ask that one of you present the question to this body for consideration and vote.”

  The Grand Master stood and waited. A few of the Dragons cleared their throats uncomfortably. Finally the Master of Air and the Master of Cities both started to rise at the same time, and the Master of Air, junior in both age and seniority, bowed slightly to the Master of Cities and sat back down. Tare Desttor-fator straightened his shoulders and took a deep breath. “I bring before the Master Dragons of the Council of Dragons of the Empire of the Hars Ticlarim the following Question of Merit, requiring a two-thirds vote of approval of a quorum of this body: I move that we—with all haste and yet all caution—bring into use soul-energy drawn from current fuel units. Furthermore, I move that Oel Maritias and such other undersea cities as are found to have low-energy damage be immediately given access to the first energy drawn from this new resource, in order to effect emergency repairs and prevent unnecessary loss of life. Finally, I move that no new fuel units be acquired or placed at this time, but that we make all efforts to efficiently use those units already in place.”

  “Second,” a couple of voices from around the table said.

  “Duly moved and seconded,” the Grand Master said. “At this time we will entertain discussion either for or against the merits of this motion— each speaker has three minutes.”

  No one rose to defend either the pro or con views. Rone watched, already quite sure of how he would vote. Everyone else seemed certain, too. The Grand Master waited long enough to be sure that no one would leap to his feet at the last moment for one impassioned plea, then said, “Very well. We have a motion on the floor to make more efficient use of our current energy units by adding soul-energy usage to their current utility. This motion specifically excludes the possibility of adding new units to our energy production, and requires first fruits of the new technology go to undersea cities to effect emergency repairs. A two-thirds vote of quorum is necessary to pass this motion. Twenty-five of twenty-eight active members of the Council are present—a two-thirds majority of that number is seventeen. Since no tie is possible, I will not vote.”

  Rone had a sudden sense that there were things the Grand Master was leaving unsaid. He raised a finger. “Rone?” the Grand Master asked.

  “Might I ask how you would vote if you were voting?”

  “No.” The Grand Master’s voice was neutral. His expression betrayed nothing. Rone could not tell if the acknowledged leader of the Dragons thought the idea wonderful or terrible, or if he was not even thinking about it at all, but was instead considering the state of his sterrits game, and how he might improve his opening moves. “And that question answered,” the Grand Master said gently, “I now put before you for vote the question on the floor, reminding you only that you speak not just for this day, but for the future.”

  The members of the Council each withdrew from the drawer in the table directly in front of their seat three balls—one white, one red, and one purple. White, the absence of color, stood for abstention with prejudice—a comment that the proposal put before the Council was in itself flawed, and that while neither a yea vote nor a nay vote suited the voter, a restatement of the question might. Red—the color of blood, war, and loss—signified a negative. And purple—the color of the Council’s flags and pennants, the color of power and wealth, the color of abundance— signified a positive vote.

  Each member of the Council took all three balls, so that no one might take a dissenting vote that he had left behind and throw it into the black jar, thus throwing the results of the vote into doubt and requiring a revote.

  A councilor could vote four ways: yea; simple abstention, in which the voter dropped all three balls into the discard container; abstention with prejudice; and nay.

  Rone palmed the purple ball in his right hand and the other two in his left, and moved into the line behind his fellows. He heard the familiar shuffling of feet, sighing, the clicks as the balls dropped into the voting jar and the discard jar. No one talked—discussion while the actual vote was in progress was absolutely forbidden. No one looked around much, either. Everyone seemed nervous. Because of the makeup of the Council, Rone expected the vote would be close. He wished the Grand Master had not excused himself—Rone could think of more than eight Council members who had in the past exhibited the same lack of logic and foresight that had suddenly erupted from Chrissa, though they rarely had the courage or the integrity to make their preferences clear in the way that Chrissa made hers clear. They were cowards, to his way of thinking—people who voted against progress but would never have the backbone to stand up and say they had voted against progress.

  Rone dropped his purple ball in the vote container, discarded the red and white ones, and then returned to his seat.

  He waited. A few councilors stood over the vote jar, pondering even in the instants before they dropped their votes, and he could just see it. A handful of whites that would invalidate the current question, but might bring up some alternative to the question, a handful of purples from people like him who understood expedient need, who knew that emergencies and disasters could only be prevented by taking whatever steps were required, but in a timely manner—not when the city was ready to implode around them all—and a handful of reds from the idiots who had never seen one of those Warren monstrosities, who insisted on thinking of them as people, and who would refuse to acknowledge their debt as councilors to the real humans of the Empire and their needs.

  He glanced at each councilor as he or she sat down. Most of them would not meet his eyes. Most of them, in fact, sat with their heads down, guilty expressions on their faces.

  Cowards.

  All was not lost, though. Chrissa had left before the vote. If she had already couriered the necessary information to him, and if it had been delivered safely to the house, he could do what needed to be done to put the new measure into practice in spite of the vote.

  And then the last of the councilors sat, and the Grand Master picked up the black jar that held the votes, and the clear jar into which they would be counted, and took his place at the table. Before all of them, he carefully poured the contents of the black jar into the clear jar, careful not to touch any of the balls that passed between the jars—for even in this stage, he might be accused of tampering with the vote if he was not careful.

  And the mass of councilors gasped. The vote was unanimous. Every single ball that fell from the black jar into the clear jar was purple.

  Shocked, Rone leaned back in his chair and stared at his fellow councilors, who—wide-eyed—were staring at each other.

  The Grand Master looked at the balls. He rolled them from the clear jar into the voting groove carved into the table. Each ball rolled to a numbered slot. The vote lay clear before everyone. Twenty-five votes in favor of adopting the measure. No abstentions except for that of the Grand Master. No abstentions with prejudice. No nays.

  “Please record the vote,” the Grand Master said, looking at the Master of Histories. The Master of Histories nodded and wrote the vote into the meeting log.

  “The vote has been recorded,” the Master of Histories said.

  “Then record this, also. ‘Following the unanimous vote by the membership of the Council of Dragons in favor of the question of the use of human souls as fuel to run the Empire, the 872nd Grand Master of the Council of Dragons submitted notice of his resignation from the Grand Mastership, from the Council, and from the Dragons, and announced both his retirement and his decision to emigrate from the Empire of the Hars Ticlarim to the outlands—effective immediately.” He looked around the table at all of them, his eyes meeting each of theirs in turn, and when he looked into Rone’s eyes, Rone felt the Grand Master’s disgust with him, his distaste for this heinous thing they had all done—and in that one moment, Rone doubted that expediency was the best course to follow.

&n
bsp; But the Grand Master picked up his belongings and said, “I am ashamed that this iniquitous thing has happened on my watch,” and turned to Rone and said, “You were third after Chrissa, and I do not doubt that she meant her resignation as deeply and as sincerely as I mean mine. Which makes you acting Grand Master for the rest of my term, and obviously leaves the wolves in charge of the sheep; I hope this nightmare that you and all your fellows have enacted does not soon turn and devour you.” And he left.

  And with the old Grand Master gone, and Rone placed abruptly and solidly in the Chair, he realized that all of his doubts about the rightness of his vote were erased. His conscience eased. He was among men and women who understood what was best for the Empire of the Hars Ticlarim, and who would do what had to be done to lead it to new heights of greatness.

  Chapter 5

  In the warm summer currents, festival globes spun the sea into rainbows, and the many-colored streamers brought forth fish by the tens of thousands, so that they became like living stars dancing in the liquid sky.

  Music swept out into the currents—the sweet strains of romantic ballads, the cheerful lilt of dance music, the martial strains of the military bands that were the only public remnant of the Hars Ticlarim’s warrior past. Mingling in the water, the many strains produced not discord but a magnificent upwelling, a wondrous and stirring symphony that summoned up visions of life and hope and passion, and that seemed to struggle to define the frailty and yet the magic that was humanity.

  Through the crystalline arcs of the corridors of the city, thousands thronged, dressed in finery created especially for this day, this moment, this place. Women painted like the fish that swam just beyond their reach and men masked and jeweled like the primitive gods of the sea that they represented moved toward the Polyphony Center for the opening ceremonies of the First Week Festival.