The Father Unbound

by Frank Kennedy

  “My son.”

  The last generation.

  THE

  BROTHERS

  THIRTEEN

  GHOST IN THE SAND

  Lucian Wash, Anirabia continent

  SY 5300

  THOUSANDS OF YEARS BEFORE the first Euro-Egyptian colonists settled on Hiebimini, mountain rainforests dotted the southern continents. Rivers flowed from them onto the open plains and formed great alluvial fans. In the islets between the rivers and streams, tall grasses with feathered plumes grew from soil enriched with nitrogen-heavy sediment and formed a whispering symphony that sang on the warm valley winds. By the time the settlers arrived from Earth, the great southern washes – as they came to be known – offered little more than occasional trickles of water, fed from once-lush rainforests. They were but pink-grey rivers of thick sediment in which might grow sparse scrub with deep taproots that reached the last, trapped underground water. The sediment had only one use; crushed into a fine paste, it became the chalk paint used by tribal artists worldwide for their murals of the great exodus.

  Few Hiebim had use for the washes. However, a band of sixty Hiebim disavowed the prevailing wisdom of their people and formed a tiny society in the rugged foothills at the base of the Lucian Wash. They carved habitats into scarps, found water in an underground grotto, channeled their sun for energy, built a hydroponics farm for their food, and successfully hacked into the global vidstream network to keep their small, disparate group of radical thinkers attuned to the events of society. They kept three licensed personal Scrams close by, as well as a pair of six-wheel ground Tumblers in the event that aerial escape was not feasible.

  Each day they arose with the passion of revolution in their hearts. They listened to the visionary who said they were not alone in their disaffection, and who made them see what lay behind the veil created by the Chancellors. Each with a specific role, they worked to create the vision of Hiebimini for Hiebim.

  On this day, their visionary left them to their chores as he ventured north on foot along a copper-red scarp bordering the outer edge of the Lucian Wash. He needed these times alone to reflect, he said. He had a plan, he told them, but the scope of it would only become clear in moments of solitude. But he was not alone, not really; as hard as he tried, Trayem Hadeed could not leave behind the love of his life.

  Standing on the edge of the scarp, fifty feet above the wash, Polemicus Miriam caressed him as she used to do right before they made love. He could almost feel her against his beard.

  “Are you happy here?”

  Hadeed thought for a moment. “Happy does not matter. I know my heart, and I see the path before me. I can see the bones of both Chancellors and Hiebim. If I allow myself to be happy, I will not have the courage to face what needs to be done.”

  Her lips almost fell upon his. “I am sad for you, but also very proud,” she said. “You are driven by a rage that is at turns primitive and beautiful. Only a man so consumed has any hope of prevailing in this struggle. Look there,” she pointed, “across the alluvial wash.”

  He stared out across the vast wash toward distant, craggy brown peaks cast in shadow beneath low clouds.

  “A strange but beautiful landscape,” she said. “Hadeed, I am very proud you have found a home here. This is an unforgiving land made for those who will not forgive.”

  Hadeed sighed. “I am trying,” he said. “But the process is slow, as you predicted. Every day my patience is challenged. It has been eight years.”

  “Yet you are steady and unwavering. My problem was that I became too political and reckless. It cost me my life.”

  Hadeed resisted the urge to reach out to her.

  “I know,” he whispered. “We were both blind to what Hollander was planning. The moment I realized how he set us up – that was the day I stopped grieving and focused on the war you couldn’t finish. We’re doing better than I expected, Miriam. I’ve found more than three hundred who see the true face of the Chancellors. We’ve been training, transferring the weapons from your caches to our own locations, using operatives inside Polemicus. Our cells are small, but they’re almost everywhere now. Watching, learning, quietly spreading our philosophy.”

  Miriam stepped off the edge of the scarp. “A courageous strategy. One I never tried.”

  “Because you did not have the same desire for blood. Miriam, you always told me that if I was going to be more than a soldier, I had to find my voice. I had to deliver the message of change in a way that could capture the imagination of a beaten, complacent people. I found that voice. They listen to me and they follow my orders without question.”

  “Then you have become what I saw in those first days.”

  He swallowed hard as Miriam faded in and out of view.

  “Perhaps not. Miriam, you always saw this revolution in measures of time. I see it in measures of blood. So do my people.” She did not respond, so he continued. “I don’t offer compromise. It is a weakness of politicians and bureaucrats. Miriam, when we find likely recruits, we bring them here for the truth, for indoctrination. There have been disappointments. Two, in truth. You do understand that we can’t allow them to return home if they are not fully committed to this path?” When Miriam did not turn to him and offer a compassionate smile, Hadeed heard a tinge of desperation enter his voice. “Even momentary compassion could destroy everything we’re building here. My people know that I am fully willing to bear their burdens for them. Those two … I made sure their deaths were honorable, in clan tradition. An’yal-fahr. We transported them back to their clans, left the bodies in full view. Each was given proper disposal.” He paused. “Miriam, I need you to be proud of me and to understand my choices.”

  She turned to him, and he saw lines above her brow and paleness in her cheeks. Her figure flickered, as a shadow fades beneath the clouds.

  “Hadeed, my sweet young Hadeed. I remember the boy who crossed the Gorsham Desert, who climbed the yellow mesa, proved his love in combat, and awoke as a young warrior of conscience. He held me in his arms after I died, and his tears rained down on me. This boy who I perverted into an assassin. I will not judge what he has become; I am past recriminations.”

  “But there are things I’ll have to do,” he said. “Things … I have plans, Miriam. Though it may take twenty years, I believe I can change the face of Hiebimini.”

  “What are you asking, Hadeed? Permission?”

  “Miriam, will I become a monster?”

  She closed her eyes and bowed her head. “Possibly.”

  He swallowed again. “And if I can rid our world of this plague, does it matter?”

  She did not respond, and Hadeed felt her drifting away.

  “If I stain our world in blood but liberate our people, do my methods matter?”

  She drifted farther from the edge, as if carried on a warm breeze. Her voice faded, but Hadeed understood every word.

  “War is the natural habitat of monsters,” she said. “They walk upright, their confidence supreme as they rationalize their choices; but the objective of monsters on all sides is the same: Victory by any means. If that end is achieved, the victors may earn the benefit of no shame, endure no consequence.” Her form began to dissolve. “Hadeed, I cannot solve the riddle of your conscience. I can only say that I have always loved you.”

  Miriam seemed to reach out for Hadeed as her form dissolved into a wisp of sand. Hadeed stumbled forward a half-step, dangerously close to the edge, and closed his eyes as he sorted through the sudden dizziness. He took a deep swallow of the dry southern air and held his breath until the dizziness passed. When he opened his eyes again, he was startled by the frozen holographic image emanating from the CV unit strapped onto his left wrist.

  Miriam stood paralyzed in a blue, body-length sharon, the formal silk robe she used to wear when teaching her private army. Like so many times before, Hadeed required a moment to gather his thoughts; he wanted to understand how he again lost touch with the reality of an instructional CV program an
d drifted into an imaginary dialogue with a dead woman.

  “Why can’t I shake her?” He whispered.

  She had followed him everywhere for eight years – on foot as he searched enclaves and villages for the disconnected and disaffected; as he studied her vast archives of historical and political documents known to few other Hiebim; as he and his first disciples committed to isolation in the southern washes and risked exposure through black-market purchases of materiel for their new home. She lay close to him each night, and she gave him a warm smile when he awoke. Hadeed saw her profile in rock formations, and her potential in the eyes of young women who defied Matriarchs and came south. Only when he wrote did he lose his sense of her. For that reason, he would often write pages of his manifesto well after most others had fallen asleep.

  Hadeed shook off the unsettling dialogue and started back toward camp, almost two kilometers away across stratified, ragged mounds of sediment in shades of red and brown. The inclines were steep and perilous, some mounds separated by nearly invisible crevasses just wide enough to suck a man through and never surrender the body. They required patient feet and cautious minds – the perfect place to test the physical commitment of his recruits.

  As he neared the camp and saw whiffs of smoke rise from the gorge, Hadeed detected the acrid aroma of grilled Anirabian wildcat. Apparently some of his disciples had completed a successful hunt of the only four-legged beast on the continent. Hadeed had eaten beef only twice in his life before escaping south. Anirabian wildcat was a tough chew even when cooked properly, but the protein was invaluable and the juices from the gamey flesh addictive and invigorating. He often wondered whether the paucity of meat among the clans was a Matriarch conspiracy designed to inhibit the natural hunter-seeker instinct of men.

  Before Hadeed could climb the final ridge and descend toward camp, he came upon a familiar figure sitting patiently on a boulder overlooking a scenic view of the wash. Polemicus Damon, who was there when Hadeed wrapped Miriam’s body in his arms and carried her ashore, stood at attention when he saw Hadeed and quickly restored his shomba to his shaven head.

  “Always so impatient,” Hadeed said with a smirk. “I’d be at camp in five minutes.”

  “But then I wouldn’t have you to myself,” Damon said, his eyes dark and solemn and not yet grown from the boy who had been Miriam’s last personal aide. “All that groveling at your feet. ‘Hadeed this,’ ‘Hadeed that.’ Requests for private sessions, asking approval of their reflections, sanctifying the communal meal. It wouldn’t stop.”

  “They’re zealots. They love me. What else would you expect of them?”

  “Leeway for us to take care of business, perhaps?”

  Hadeed could almost laugh. “I thought we covered all matters this morning.”

  “Have you ever known me without an agenda?”

  “Never. Perhaps if you would sleep like the rest of us do, you’d have less time to obsess over these matters. The war will not start for many years yet.”

  Damon bowed his head. “I wish I could sleep; but the nightmares, the messages from her … I can’t face them. Even after all these years.”

  Hadeed dropped a supportive hand on his closest comrade.

  “Apologies. My sarcasm was uncalled for.”

  “And I should remind you,” Damon said, smiling broadly as he faced his leader, “if not for my insomnia, we’d be short a hundred thousand haebims, give or take.”

  Hadeed nodded. He recognized the debt he owed Damon, who at fifteen had been the most fastidious aide Miriam ever had. In the days following her assassination, Damon discovered the shell accounts she and her predecessors had stocked in defiance of Sanctum corporate regulations. The clan, which had fallen into a bitter schism over the choice of a new, more traditional Matriarch, would soon take possession of Miriam’s compound. Before that could happen, Damon and Hadeed convinced each other of what Miriam would want. Hadeed offered the vision of continuing Miriam’s preparation for war, but far from a clan about to be emasculated by leaders unwilling to fight Chancellor dominance. Indeed, the first quiet edict of the new Matriarch dissolved Miriam’s secret army. The night before that edict came down, Damon transferred funds into another shell account beyond the reach of the bureaucracy of an Anirabian Sanctum.

  “I won’t soon forget,” Hadeed said. “In the end, we cannot fight wealth without wealth. If the Chancellors have taught me nothing else, then that’s a reasonable lesson. So, your agenda?”

  The aide forced an ironic smile. “You’ve heard this one before,” he said, pressing a nodule on the CV unit strapped to his wrist. “It’s the Constitution again.”

  Hadeed felt his blood heat at once. “Another revision?”

  Damon nodded. “Two weeks ago. Northwest Ashkinar Sanctum. They entered another exclusionary clause regarding brontinium profits. As usual, no vidstream pronouncement, not even notification on the Matriarch links. We only know this because Benazir Muhammat visited the People’s Union and searched the hall of records for new listings.”

  “Hmmph. The most important document in our history, tucked away on a CV freeload in a compound crawling with Chancellor leeches.” He took a deep breath. “You have the details?”

  Damon’s CV generated a meter-high holograph with a document summary. When Hadeed finished reading Muhammat’s message, he instructed Damon to kill the vidstream.

  “Another perversion,” he said softly, “but the Sanctum would say it’s perfectly legal.” Hadeed stared past Damon toward the western sun, now less than an hour before setting. “Did you know the Constitution of Sovereignty was only two pages long when the founders signed? It guaranteed that naturalized Hiebim colonists would have full control over this world, even the mineral rights. It has been revised seven hundred and forty-four times in the past thousand years and is now more than six thousand pages long. The Sanctums have stripped us of what little dignity we have left, and no voice of protest can be heard.”

  “Perhaps this time … Hadeed, we’ve talked often about hijacking vidstream frequencies. Surely, this development warrants such an attempt. If the population knew …”

  “They would do nothing. As always. Rise up against their ‘partners’? We, on the other hand, would draw attention to ourselves. No, Damon. There are other ways of turning the future to our advantage. Most Hiebim have long forgotten about the Constitution or its purpose.”

  “But not your disciples.”

  “No, not them. There are still a few …” He stopped and smelled the grilling wildcat. “A few who believe in the possible.” They started toward camp. “Anything else?”

  “Nothing that can’t wait. Hadeed … I … I hesitate to ask this, but did you …?”

  “Find answers on my hike? Don’t be embarrassed; I know it’s what all of you wonder. You’d like to think I’m discovering some great providence when I’m away because the alternative is that I’m losing my wits.”

  “On the contrary, Hadeed. We will go to the end with you, wherever it takes us. But the disciples … they would be heartened by occasional details.”

  They ascended the final ridge before the gorge. A howling gust blew upon them, and Hadeed could almost hear Miriam’s whispers in the wind.

  “It’s as you said. When I’m in camp, there are endless distractions. Though I love my people, they leave me little time to think with a clear mind. I don’t believe the details of what I do alone should matter. All anyone needs to know is I have a plan.”

  “Ah, yes,” Damon said. “The plan you won’t talk about, not even to me. Hadeed, in the eight years we’ve been together, you’ve never kept anything from me except this. I’ve walked this planet with you to recruit your disciples, found the few who also see behind the veil and believe you will change our world. Haven’t I earned your complete trust?”

  They reached the top of the ridge and looked down upon the camp, a collection of hollowed-out holes in the scarp, field tents, and open spits upon which the communal meal was being prepar
ed. A few disciples saw their leader appear and nodded then continued with their appointed tasks. One, a young woman named Baqqari Adair, trained her eyes upon Hadeed and did not let go. He had grave concerns about Adair, but he also knew what she could mean for the future of the Hiebim people. He turned away and refocused on more immediate concerns.

  “I’ll never trust a man more than you,” Hadeed told Damon. “But every day I face the same question: Why didn’t they come for me?” He turned to his closest friend. “They killed every member of the conspiracy against Hollander without hesitation. Everyone except the assassin. He knew who I was, and I was living in plain sight. Yet he let me go. I don’t know why, and I’ve almost given up trying to explain it. But I will never again allow others to be the victims of my failures. Even to the very day my plan is carried out, I will be the only living Hiebim who knows the full scope of it. Until then, I ask …”

  “For our trust. And you’ll have it. I promise, Hadeed.”

  He wrapped an arm over Damon’s shoulders. “Never a doubt. Now, let’s join our people for a meal. We’ll toast to having found one another. And then, Damon, we’ll talk about the Constitution, and I’ll remind our young zealots why we cannot live in a world with Chancellors.”

  They descended the ridge on winding steps carved out of the rock face. As some of his followers moved toward the base of the steps, prepared to pepper him with questions or share their personal revelations, Hadeed felt the same as when his haepong stardom reached its height. He would arrive on the pack to the cheers and adulation of his teammates, who looked to Hadeed to secure victory. Even though he had not picked up a haepong stick in eight years, he could not resist the exhilaration of the moment. The energy they poured into Hadeed fended off the vision of what was to come, of the possibility that one day he would become a monster.

  FOURTEEN