The Father Unbound

by Frank Kennedy

  Hadeed turned toward the door at the far end of the great hall and froze. He expected to see a steady blast of sunlight through the open door, but a thick, undefined shadow filled the opening. He swallowed and tried not to be afraid.

  “There you are,” a man said.

  The intruder walked into the shadows with a noticeable limp, a cane tapping the floor. Behind him, a tactical cart like Hadeed once saw with a peacekeeper squadron followed behind under remote control. The man stopped the cart, opened the lid and removed a tripod onto which he screwed an oval glass piece. The man stepped away, waved his left hand, and a translucent globe illuminated the entire hall. Hadeed turned away briefly but quickly readjusted his eyes.

  “Much better,” the intruder said. “Socializing in the dark does not rank near the top of my preferred recreational activities. Yes?”

  Hadeed did not move. He knew right away the man was a Chancellor. Despite the limp and the Hiebim deep-plains robe, he cut too imposing a figure. His beard was also thick but well-coiffed, a silvery tint matching his hair. He wore a floppy brown hat shading his eyes. The cart followed behind.

  “You are smart to stay inside,” the man said. “I never dared go outside on a day like this. And the smell in Messalina … horrifying.”

  Hadeed’s legs buckled the more he heard the voice, looked past the beard, and examined the eyes. He didn’t want to believe it possible. The last time he was this close, those eyes were tinted behind blue glasses. Hadeed wanted to ball his fists and throw himself at the man, but he did not have the strength.

  “How?” He asked after a cough. “How did you …?”

  “Find you?” Ephraim Hollander held a tiny flickering red device in his left hand. “It’s in your knee, Hadeed. Been there since you were seven. Good thing you didn’t lose your leg during the war. Would have been quite the inconvenience. Yes?”

  Ephraim opened the cart and removed a pair of backless fold-out seats. He flipped them open and placed one in front of Hadeed, who could not register what was happening. Was this another of those echoes from the past fluttering in through his dreams?

  “Please,” Ephraim said. “Have a seat. You do not look well at all. Let’s see what I can do for you.” As Hadeed tried to grasp the impossible, he reached down and touched the seat, making sure it was real. Every muscle ached as he tried to sit. Ephraim produced a translucent circular flask in one hand and covered silver tray in the other. “The water is filtered fresh from the Bengalese. I made a stop along the way. In truth, one of many stops. Nostalgia, I suppose. The water has been chilled but not so much as to shock your system. Yes?”

  Hadeed grabbed the flask with both shaky hands and flipped open the lid. The water went down like ambrosia, and he did not mind losing some of it on his beard. As soon as he finished a bountiful swig, Hadeed stared at a tray of food. He did not recognize the meat or vegetables, but he also did not care. He salivated and dropped the flask to his side. As he reached for the tray, Ephraim pulled back.

  “Careful, Hadeed. I rather suspect you haven’t had much nutrition in your body for some time. Eat slowly, in small bites. Yes? I did not come all this way to watch you deposit your innards at my feet.”

  Hadeed tried to balance the tray on his lap, but his legs quaked and the tray rattled. He nearly spilled the food before Ephraim placed his hands on Hadeed’s knees and told him to settle. They looked each other in the eyes. Hadeed could not process what he should be feeling. He did not want to appear grateful or desperate, not to this man. He resisted tears.

  Ephraim sighed. “Hadeed, you and I both gave up any semblance of dignity long ago, and we probably do not deserve to be alive. But, here we are. Eat your meal.”

  Ephraim walked away. Hadeed grabbed the meat with his fingers and tore it apart with his teeth, trapping gravy in his beard. He felt like an animal, worse than the lowest Hiebim subjugated to Chancellor will, but he did not care. He tried to eat with caution, but the tastes compelled him to put more food in his mouth even as he swallowed the previous bites. He had almost cleaned the last of the tray when he heard flowing water. Hadeed looked up and saw Ephraim urinating through an open window hole.

  “Like I said,” Ephraim bellowed as he zipped up, “no more dignity.”

  Hadeed felt sleepy within seconds of finishing. He tossed the tray aside and followed with more Bengalese River water. Ephraim snapped his fingers when Hadeed started to nod off.

  “A natural reaction,” he said, “but not one you have to follow. I don’t believe sleep is what you need at this time. Besides, I’m sure you have many questions. Shall we begin?”

  Hadeed was dizzy. He didn’t know whether Hollander was mocking him again, treating him like the child who his aide raped in the bowels of the Agriculture Ministry, or actually trying to conduct an intelligent conversation. His dreams made more sense.

  “Why?” He managed at last. “Why did you come now? After all these years?”

  Ephraim took a sip from his own flask. “Believe it or not, because I was supposed to.”

  Hadeed rattled through his memory. This can’t be.

  “Supposed to? Did someone tell you to come?”

  “After a fashion. Took me many years to understand. One piece never fit. When you fully expect to be dead, and somehow you are not, fate plays games with your sanity. Yes?”

  Ignatius Horne’s last words crept into Hadeed’s memory. He repeated them to Ephraim. “You will know what to do when you leave here and where to go. Wait for him. He will show you the final truth.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He told me, and I believed him. I came back to Asra because I was sure this was where I was supposed to go. But you can’t be …”

  Ephraim forced a smile. “The one you are waiting for? Hmm. Look closer, Hadeed. Look at me. Really look at me.”

  The patterns emerged almost at once. Except for the substitute of silver hair for gold, the facial features were too recognizable to be coincidence. Hadeed gasped.

  “He was my son,” Ephraim said. “His name was Ilya. I rather suspect he never would have told you or else you would not have listened to him. Yes? Ilya built quite a life on his other identity. Turns out, he gave me a granddaughter. She’ll never know me, of course. Still, I did manage a glimpse about six years ago. She has his eyes.”

  Hadeed could not believe his stupidity. “Are you saying everything he did was for you? Another Chancellor trick?”

  “On the contrary. Ilya stood in the center of the Hall of Sun and spoke more truth than most Chancellors do in a lifetime. Every word, Hadeed. The irony is rather unsettling. Yes?”

  “He … he showed me things. He showed me history and told me the path was not finished. He and …” Hadeed searched through a growing fog. “He and The Father. I didn’t understand what happened afterward. The fire … the mines dying … and now the planet. Hollander, how long do we have?”

  Ephraim wagged a finger. “Now there’s an interesting question, primarily because the answer is fraught with possibilities. Tell me, Hadeed, when was the last time you heard a stream report about the impending death of this planet?”

  “Two years at least. I stole a portable CV long ago, but I damaged it. Never bothered to find a replacement.”

  “Hmm. You have been off the farm indeed. In some respects, I can relate. I’ve often had to sink into alternative lifestyles for periods of time, far away from the hubs of commerce. When you are one of the most renowned fugitives in the Collectorate, life is … interesting. Yes?” Hadeed narrowed his eyes in skepticism. Ephraim nodded. “Trust me, Hadeed. The things I have done … the only great mystery is how I avoided detection for so long. If you knew everything, I suspect your feeble body would find the strength to leap from your chair and kill me. The problem is … I wasn’t supposed to live this long.”

  Hadeed frowned. “If the whole Collectorate is hunting you, how did you make it here?”

  “The same way I avoided my various and sundry pursuers for ten year
s: My wits. You see, the Chancellor bureaucracy is detail-oriented but very unimaginative, and the UG follows a predictable script. They assume a Chancellor will behave like a Chancellor. In truth, I must say I have met some of the most amazing people since I began associating with ethnics.”

  Hadeed drank more water. He could hear the condescension in Ephraim, just as he did fifty years ago in the bowels of the Agriculture Ministry.

  “Maybe if you had started associating with them sooner, like before you came to Hiebimini … maybe …”

  “Maybe what?” Ephraim stopped him. “Maybe I wouldn’t have been a bad man? Oh, Hadeed. I see the look in your eyes. Here’s a truth for you: There are no bad men. Only agendas. No man sets out to be bad, to be capricious or outright evil. He has ambition, sets goals, pursues every means at his disposal to fulfill those goals. Yes? Others might consider the goals or at the very least the means to be … destructive … but the man always has a noble interest in mind. Even self-preservation is noble if shown in the proper light. How many people have thought you were a bad man? Hmm? Certainly not your sons.”

  Hadeed rose quickly. He could not look this Chancellor in the face any longer. However, the dizziness overcame him at once and he tipped over. Ephraim rushed over and grabbed Hadeed, helping him to the floor. Ephraim told him to take care, but Hadeed pushed him away.

  “Keep your hands off me.” Hadeed felt nauseous. “Cudfrucking bastard.”

  Ephraim gave him space. The Chancellor walked to a window hole and stared at the ruins. “One standard day,” Ephraim said, raising his voice. “That’s how much time we have, according to the experts anyway.

  “Hadeed, almost four thousand Hiebim stayed behind when the last evacuation Carrier departed. Quite incredible, really. Some didn’t believe the end was coming; they have not had much reason to trust Chancellors, after all. But most preferred to die on their home world rather than resettle anywhere else. Cannot say as I blame them. I would not care to live on Vishnu colony, either. Terrible choice, that one. I suppose the Presidium expected to drop off the lot of you there and never hear from you again.

  “In truth, the Presidium has enough headaches just dealing with the brontinium fallout. I think you would enjoy seeing what has happened to us, Hadeed. You wanted us off your world so badly, and we finally obliged when the mines died. Then we turned on each other. It has not been pretty. At times laughable, but never pretty. We will bicker with each other until the last of us finally goes to dust. The colonies will break away before long. You may not have won your war, Hadeed, but what you started has changed the face of a thousand-year-old empire. A little desert boy with a haepong stick. Remarkable.”

  Hadeed heard the words but digested only the last few. He grabbed hold of the single memory of his early years still stamped on his consciousness second-by-second. He saw the dusty road ahead. He was heading toward the pack. He wanted to show off his new striker’s stick, given to him as a birthday present. He was so proud. And then they came … falling from the sky in their crimson armor. Hadeed could see it all, hear the rifle blasts, feel the ground tremble. And then the shadow of a Chancellor in a fedora and blue glasses …

  “Why?” Hadeed whispered. “Why?” He shouted. “Why me?”

  Ephraim sighed and returned to his fold-out chair. “All paths intersect eventually, Hadeed,” he said. “If another boy had walked into the intersection first, you might have gone on to live a comfortable life trading on your haepong stardom. True, I was experimenting with breaking ethnics from the Genysen Effect, and I did have a goal. But you were one of hundreds. My operatives were attempting the same on several other colonies as well. I did not realize how special you might be until you abandoned your clan. Even after I left Hiebimini, I was never far away. I always had someone close to you providing updates.”

  Hadeed thought of Miriam and Damon, and he wanted to leap up and grab Hollander by the neck. Instead, he wrapped his hands behind his own head and tried to contain the rage.

  “I have killed men … and boys … and women … and girls,” he said through gritted teeth. “I have stabbed them through their hearts, shot them through their heads, commanded my disciples to kill all those who got in our way. I was a warmonger, a murderer, and I thirsted for blood. I became a monster … worse even. But you …”

  Ephraim wagged his finger. “Now, now, Hadeed. I think you know better at this point than to blame me for your lifetime of destructive behavior. Yes? I might have had a significant role in pushing you along a new path, but the decisions were yours. Blame me for destroying your childhood. Fair enough. But each man is the sole caretaker of his ambition. And you, Hadeed, had far too much ambition.”

  “I wanted a better world for my people. You could have given it to us, Hollander. You were prime regent. All you had to do was say the word, and you could have given the Hiebim more. Made them happier, more comfortable, given them a share of the wealth you sucked from their world. At least what I did was out of love for the freedom of my people.”

  “Yes. And two million people died in the process. You see? No bad men. Only agendas.” Hadeed balled a fist, but Ephraim scoffed. “Enough with the recriminations, Hadeed. There are more to go around than we have time to discuss. In the end, we both lost. Yes? Abraham and Omar? You loved them. Ilya? A magnificent man. We are left with painful memories and regrets. So does every man who looks back on his life. It is the nasty little secret we pretend we will never have to face. Hmmph. In truth, Hadeed, we have a more pressing concern: The reason I believe I am supposed to be here.”

  “Which is?”

  Ephraim swigged water and studied Hadeed for a moment. “Aren’t we pathetic?” Ephraim said, his voice cracking. “After all these years, and all we did, look at us now.”

  Hadeed sensed a downshift in Hollander’s arrogance. “We earned this,” Hadeed replied.

  Ephraim smiled through his beard. “Yes. But maybe …” His features turned serious. “Hadeed, I came here at the end because I need to show you something. Consider it a reparation of sorts. It has taken many years to come to terms with this, to think it even possible, but it must be the final piece.”

  “What are you going on about?”

  “I do not know how much my son told you of the Jewels beyond what he disclosed in the Hall of Sun, but what happened ten years ago was foretold by these same Jewels. Those of us who worked in their service tried to predict the future based on a narrative poem they gave us centuries ago. Each stanza of this poem came true, or so I thought. Now, I am not so certain it has been fulfilled. It ends like this:

  “And from the three-winged beast is delivered the gifts of expeditious annihilation and the undiscovered path toward renewal. The fallen know only the window through which they see, but the lasting blood is drawn from fire and braced in twelve eyes. They are the five encased for the one, appearing through the arrogant rift of the soul, in geometry unpredicted. From this gift is found final truth, the path reborn.”

  Hadeed tensed. “I know that poem.” He searched his mind. “I don’t … I thought I knew it. The Father. He whispered it to me. I didn’t even remember until you said it just now.”

  “I am sure he gave it to you for a very specific reason. Hadeed, I firmly believe all of us who served the Jewels misinterpreted the end of our mission. We believed civilization would fall into utter ruin and be saved – renewed – when the Jewels appeared to the people as gods. ‘The undiscovered path toward renewal.’ That word. ‘Undiscovered.’ It bothered me for years. You see, ‘the five encased for the one’ clearly predicts the reunion of the Jewels over Hiebimini ten years ago. The other details relate to the Hall of Sun and the revelation about brontinium. Yet, the final stanza calls this event a ‘gift.’ It predicts we will discover a final truth and a path reborn.” Ephraim’s eyes bulged. “I do not believe that what happened ten years ago qualifies as a gift to anyone. The death of the brontinium veins doomed your people as much as mine. Hadeed, what if the undiscovered path has
been visible to us all these years but we did not know how to see it? What if the only way to discover it is to open our eyes to a final truth? And if we find the path, will we be reborn? Perhaps, there can be redemption.”

  Hadeed shook his head. “You are more insane than I am.”

  “Possibly. Hadeed, it is time to take a walk. I am going to help you up now …”

  Hadeed pushed him away and insisted he could rise on his own. His first steps were slow, and he overcame dizziness, but Hadeed followed Ephraim to the doorway on his own power. When they reached the sunlight, Ephraim offered his large, floppy hat, but Hadeed refused.

  “I will not wear anything of yours, Hollander. I cannot believe we are doing this.”

  “Very well.” They began to walk. “Hadeed, after the atmospheric explosion, scientists reported no side-effects from the fire layer. Yes? There were reports of ash falling from the sky, but no one detected anything abnormal in its chemical composition. They all thought they had avoided an apocalypse. Three months later, the veins began to die; the ore lost its magnetic properties. The extract Chancellors needed for their injections became inert. No explanation, but a few billion positively panicked Chancellors, I must report.

  “Exogeologists then investigated and discovered the magnetic bleed from brontinium was nearing the core and would destroy the planet, a fact more than a few of us regents concealed for decades. One of my many indiscretions, but that’s neither here nor there. Strange.”

  Hadeed could not resist. “Why strange?”

  “Somehow, the Jewels seeded this world with the elements necessary to neutralize brontinium. However, the magnetic bleed – identical chemical compounds, you see – continued toward the core. It was almost as if the Jewels were being very selective.

  “Now, the experts say this world will end within the next standard day. What if they are wrong? What if they can’t see what this is really all about?” He reached down and grabbed a fistful of the sand and assorted particulates coating Asra unchecked since the town was last abandoned. He sifted the sand through his fingers. “Look at all the colors, Hadeed. Some of the particulates twinkle in the sunlight.”