The Magister (Earthkeep) (22 page)

"We're talking about a watershed in history, Zudie, one that probably outstrips the discovery of fire or the development of language.  We're talking about the rebirth of the human race."

Zude was on her feet in an instant, striding past Jez toward the chest-high wall behind her.  She leaned into it, shaking her head and pulling into her lungs long drafts of night air.  When at last she spoke, to the desert as well as to Jez, her words were equanimity itself.  "I know you are serious.  You may be the only person who could say these things to me and expect to be taken seriously." 

She turned once again toward Jez.  "But even if I were capable of doing what you ask, I wouldn't do it."

Jez's shoulders sank a barely perceptible millimeter.  She spoke without looking up.  "Well.  That's plainly said."

Zude made herself wait.

Jez rose. "Zude, I have to say more.  Will you hear me?"

"You know I will."

Jez thought a moment before she spoke.  "The Kanshoubu itself knows that force invites force.  Why don't Kanshou train in the use of heavy arms?  On some duty tours they don't even carry standard police batons.  Just bare hands and moral courage.  All three of the academies meticulously train Kanshou in how to use the least necessary force in every circumstance.  Why?  Because, Zude, they know that
simple and profound presence
is the only true antidote to potential violence."

She stepped toward the shadowed figure by the wall. 

"And your Kanshou Oath, Zude.  All I'm asking you and the Kanshoubu to do is to enact your own statement of faith."  She turned away to recite: "'Thus my primary and unalterable purpose in becoming Kanshou will ever be to render obsolete my own profession and the Kanshoubu itself.'" 

She faced Zude.  "It's that time, Zude."

Zude slapped the parapet's ledge.  "It is not that time!  Jez, you don't know what you're talking about!  Have you seen the stats on the rising incidence of violence?  Have you heard the stories about armed bands of women castrating men?  Are you aware that the Femmedarmery is so short-handed that it's had to solicit volunteers?  And in Rangoon some crazy piece of work planted a bomb, a bomb if you please, in the middle of the city's administration plaza!"  Zude raised a hand in entreaty.  "Jez, people fear lawlessness now as never before in recent times.  And you want to dismantle the Kanshoubu?  Now?"  She ran her hand through her hair and shook her head.

Jez stood silently.  Then she sighed.  "I had to come today," she said.  "I had to try, even though I doubted that I could reach you.  Then, we met.  Here on this rooftop.  And I saw how you've changed.  Your children, your Swallower, the sea animals.  And for the first time I felt hope." 

She leaned on the heavy chairback toward Zude.  "What I don't understand is how you could experience such changes and still close yourself off from what you are so clearly being called to do."

"Jez, hear me."  Zude's voice pleaded.  "Understand me, if you can: I don't believe it.  I just don't believe this is what I'm being called to do!" 

And suddenly, as she uttered the last words, the I-Bear's words rolled into her head, turning themselves toward a different sun, taking on a new color, a firmer design. 

"What you are proudest of you must destroy." 

With a bitter bark of a laugh, Zude whirled toward the parapet. The more fool you, Adverb! she told herself in bewilderment.  You thought you were proudest of the bailiwicks!

"Zude!"  Jez's voice was anxious.  "What is it?"

Zude pressed her palms hard against the ledge.  "A little irony, Jezebel," she answered, "just a little irony." 

She stood stock-still, a silhouette against a starry sky.

Jez approached the silhouette.  She spoke gently, matter-of-factly.  "Zude, in the past week you've visited four bailiwicks in four different regions."

Zude snapped her head toward the words, her eyes searching Jez's face.

"You've been trying to decide," Jez went on, "if the dying out of the whole human race warrants some change in peacekeeping practices.  You've been thinking of closing down the bailiwicks, of setting free every habitante."

Zude's lips barely moved.  "How do you know that?"

"Just tell me.  It's true, isn't it?"

Starlight covered them both.  Zude nodded slowly.

"Then," Jez whispered, "it's just one more step to . . ."

"I know, I know!"  Zude spun away from the wall.  "Jez, I don't know how you know what you know, but yes!  Yes, I'm ready to free the habitantes, for lots of reasons, all of them good.  But you're asking for far more than that!"  She faced Jez, speaking faster.  "Look.  The whole species is about to ride out into oblivion.  That's the only thing that most people understand.  And when they realize that, they panic.  They cling to familiar possessions, to the things that have always given them stability and security.  They cling to their Kanshou!"

"No!"

Zude stared at her.

"You're selling us all short, Zude.  You might have been right a century ago, even two decades ago!  But we are a better race of beings now.  Look what's happened to us!  Look what we've had to learn!  First the animals, then the men, and now our children!  Look how it's all unfolded, like a magnificent illuminated manuscript!  Like a proclamation, Zude, from the Universe Itself, telling us in no uncertain terms what we must now do!" 

Jez held up both hands.  "The Protocols!  Zude, do you remember the Protocols?"  She leaned on the chairback, reaching for Zude's eyes.  "The Protocols distilled and intensified the issue of violence.  They brought to a head the very thing we came here ultimately to understand!  And what happened with the Protocols, Zude?  There was no way out of that dilemma.  It was clear that, in order to quell violence, we'd have to abrogate a basic human right.  How could such a decision be made?"

She raised one hand.  "The answer?  Don't make it!  Instead, turn your attention to something far more devastating that just coincidentally happens to be happening.  Instead, turn your attention to the most important lesson we'll ever have the opportunity to learn.  Instead, deal with the big possibility that there may be no more humans, violent or not, to be a part of whatever decision is made!"

She stood again in front of Zude at the parapet, her face flushed and animated. 

"Zudie, people aren't looking for security anymore.  We've learned too much about love and hate, about right and wrong, and about how fear has always fueled those dualities.  We know that, whatever comes, it will have to be big and different, something equal to the big and different things facing us.  I've seen it in people all over the world, Zude, that excitement about what could come.  I've heard it in their voices, seen it in their eyes.  In every satrapy, in every kitchen, by every dock, around every village fire, under every veil."

"Jez, Jez!"  Zude shook her head helplessly.  "You're not talking to the people I'm talking to."

"Of course not!" Jez exclaimed.  "Of course not, Zude.  You're the Magister, and I'm the Witch!  We have different constituencies."  She found Zude's eyes.  "But I promise you, people are ready.  Hundreds of millions of them."

Zude turned away from her.

Jez followed and stood behind her.  Her voice was low, intense.  "They're scared, yes.  But ready.  They know we're all about to step into a brand new episode in our evolution, and they need some guidance." 

She leaned over the shoulder of the Kanshou uniform, looking outward with its wearer, her words brushing a unicorn earring.

"You can show us the way, Zude, you can give us a model for dealing with our fear."  She felt Zude's head moving left and right.  "You've got the power.  Take the leadership now in this crucial moment of history, and we'll rally behind you in the blink of an eye, rejoicing as we go!"

"Jez. . ."

"We need a metaphor, Zudie, a symbolic action that states our desire to let go of fear." 

Gently, she stepped in front of Zude's rigid figure.  She captured the brown eyes, holding them with her own.  "Zude, dissolving the Kanshoubu is that metaphor!"

Zude stood very still.  She closed her eyes.

Heartbeats ticked by. 

Zude spoke quietly.  "I'll think about all this, but I'd be lying if I told you there's much hope."  She closed her eyes again and shook her head.

No sounds came from the desert now.  The silence was the stillness of the stars, in which all had been spoken.

Both women sighed -- Zude because she saw them floating rapidly apart on a widening sea of disparate perceptions, and Jez because she saw the two of them standing together facing a stone wall.  If, at that moment, Zude had not been scrutinizing her big hands in an agony of distress, she might have sensed that her companion was trimming the sails of discourse to catch a different wind. 

"I want us to relax a little," Jez was saying.  She moved as if to slide her hand through Zude's arm and then caught herself abruptly and drew back.

"Here," Zude said quickly, holding out her hand.

Jez took it with a rueful smile.  They fell into a leisurely walk, rhyming their steps as of old.

"You're not finished, are you?"  Zude observed.

"Almost."

"I figured." 

They strolled on, swinging their hands between them. 

"You won't persuade me, Jezebel."

"I know that.  The only person who can persuade you is you." 

There was a long quiet in their strolling.  Jez urged them toward the dome at the center of the roof.  "Let me add one last thing, and then I'll say no more." 

She stopped their progress and held Zude's eyes.  "If you decide not to take this risk, then we'll all be the losers.  I don't know if we'll ever have another chance to understand violence.  Or who we are.  Or what our proper function is as a part of this particular biosphere.  We'll pack our tents and pass out of existence with our little whimper, like other species that were invited to do the job and ultimately also failed."

"You make it sound so cosmic."

"It is cosmic."

"But then Little Blue will be Paradise again," Zude mused.  "Maybe better than before.  The animals will return and take up where they left off, without the awful hazard of Homo sapiens breathing down their necks.  And clouds and trees and oceans, Jez, they'll all rejoice with relief and gratitude, Hallelujah! they'll sing. Hallelujah, they're gone!"

Jez sank on the low wall that surrounded the dome, inviting Zude to sit beside her.  "Maybe," she said.  "Then a few million more years of evolution, and another species will emerge to be charged with the task of understanding negativity and violence."

"Whoever they are," Zude said quietly, "I wish them well.  They may not make it, either."

Jez nodded.  "And so it will go, until the sun grows cold, and other galaxies are invited to host such experiments."

They sat without speaking for a long minute, Jez staring into the quiet desert, Zude worrying the gravel with the toe of one boot.  Behind them, dim versions of casino noises bounced against the depaqued dome.

"Jez." 

The name floated on the cooling air. 

Jez looked up.

"You were right." 

Jez cocked her head in query. 

Zude searched for words.  "What you used to say, that we are all just forms of energy, eternal and infinite."  She paused.  "Do you remember?"

"I remember, Zudie."

"Well, I know it now.  And I know it's changed my understanding of death.  I no longer fear it."

"Zude, that's it!"

"That's what?"

"That's what we both have to think about.  Don't you see?  The critical factor in having real presence is lack of fear.  If all of us lost our fear of death, then violence would have no hold on us.  And. . ."

"And we'd have no reason to keep the Kanshoubu," Zude finished, her eyes laughing.  Then she sobered.  "Jezebel, best beloved."  She sought true words.  "I don't know what my decision will be.  We're left — the Magisters, the Webs, the Kitchen Tables, the Cabinets — we're all left trying to hold it together. . ."

Jez stopped her with the touch of her hand.  "Hush, Zudie.  We've said enough." 

She rose, and drew Zude to her feet.  They faced each other in the starlight.  "We'll meet again.  Either to observe the new human animal, or to watch us all fade away."

"I would like that, Jezebel."

"So would I."

Jez took the unicorn earring from her pocket and deliberately set it back in her own ear.  Zude watched her. 

Then Jez spoke in a limber voice, almost light and chatty.  "Will you come and meet Dicken?"

"Of course."

"She's only a little bit in awe of you."

"As I am of her."

They nodded, and walked hand in hand to the drop shaft.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Much deeper into the Aztlán night, it was Magister Adverb who stood alone by the dome above the casino.  She waved to the departing spoon with a dignity becoming her station.  Then, walking slowly and carefully over the roof-garden, she retraced each movement of the evening's encounter and reheard each of the evening's words.  When the Mat Rangers arrived near dawn, they thought they saw a tiny spot of light accompanying their Magister, alternately sitting on her shoulder and sweeping before her in what appeared to be an animated conversation.

9 - BURIAL BARQUE – [12088 C.E.]

By the mind the world is led.

Wisdom Of The Ancients

It was midafternoon of a calm sunny day on the brightly decorated deck of a large barque.  The barque rocked gently on the swells of the ocean just off the Los Angeles coast, beyond the channel where the semi-deeps begin.

The barque was a recreational and ceremonial vessel of the Vigilancia's Sea-Shrieves, the
N.T.S. Steinem
.  Over 35 meters long, she resembled an ancient trireme.  She had been propelled by her fusion cells from Huerta Beach to the Channel Islands and from there by three tiers of long oars on each side of her hull.   One hundred Vigilantes and more had labored at the oars on the final leg of the barque's journey to her appointed destination: theburial site of yet another burden of small bodies.