“Well, from what you tell me, it’s a healthful life, without much stress. And, unlike most populations, the people on Hobbs Land are self-selected to be those who want to live that kind of life. I suppose by now most anyone who wasn’t well-suited to it has given up and departed.” He stared at Shan innocently. “They are allowed to depart if they wish?”
“They are,” said Shan unrepentantly. “Still, I believe something …”
“You believe something bad, evil, threatening is happening. You don’t know why, you don’t know how, you don’t know what, but something’s wrong, is that it?”
“I want to tell the Scrutators how I feel. Just for the record.”
Reticingh threw up his hands again. “You have that right, Shanrandinore Damzel. If you had not the right on your own account, I would obtain it for you, as the dear son of my old friends. Still, think about it carefully. You have told me nothing convincing. Others may question your judgement.”
“For the record,” said Shan stubbornly. “I insist.”
“Very well then,” agreed Reticingh. “For the record. I will make the arrangements for a hearing and inform you when I have done so.”
Dismissed, Shan Damzel went out through the hall and onto the high walkway along the parapet, which led to the top of the grand staircase. He had come up that staircase, slow flight by slow flight, eschewing the gravities which would have lifted him without effort. Climbing to the ramparts of the Chowdari Temple of the Overmind had the weight and force of ritual, a significance beyond the mere physical effort. It was a symbol of trial, of overcoming inimical forces. The grand staircase wound around the temple, a long flight beginning at the southeast corner of the temple and climbing to the northeast corner, then turning across to the northwest, to the southwest, then up to a point directly above the starting point, where he stood now. From his present vantage point he could look down into the drill grounds where thousands of young Baidee, tunicked and turbaned, identical as grains of sand, engaged in weapons practice.
Odd. It hadn’t occurred to Shan before, and would not have now except for Reticingh’s comment about the orchestra, but was not the subordination of one’s own judgement in accepting military orders “fooling with one’s head”? When Shan had been among them, the troops had been harangued for hours at a time by their officers. They had been converted to a proper frame of mind to make them move and march and maneuver as proper soldiers. They had come to an absolute uniformity of opinion upon some matters, many matters.
Shan turned away from the parapet and wiped his forehead. It wasn’t the same thing. One could choose not to take part in military service. The alternatives were unpleasant, but one could choose.
He turned back, focusing his attention on the wheeling thousands. Some of these very men might be under Churry’s command in the brigades. Some, perhaps, were members of The Arm of the Prophetess, about which Shan had heard whispers. If there was no response from the Circle of Scrutators, and it seemed unlikely there would be none, then there was one body of dedicated Baidee who would see the threat to their traditional freedoms. One group who would realize such a threat could not go unopposed, to spread, perhaps to spread widely.
He wiped his forehead and swallowed bile at the back of his throat. There would be one group he could count on. And at least one dedicated Baidee to lead them.
• On the moon Enforcement, Overmajor Altabon Faros tried to think of anything in the universe except his wife, Silene. Often he woke in the night to the sound of her screaming words at him, only to realize words could not come from her lips again. Unless. … unless he could get her away from Voorstod. Elsewhere, she might have a new tongue cloned. Elsewhere she might be well again, herself again. Otherwise, there were certain secret sweet names she had called him which were forever silent. There were certain sweet plans they had made which were forever dead. If she herself were dead, he would have grieved and forgotten, but she lived and might go on living if he could quit thinking about her enough to go on doing what he was supposed to be doing. Only by doing it successfully could he save her life. So Faros spent evenings and early mornings concentrating on what he knew about what he had to do. Everything he knew about Enforcement. Everything he knew about Authority.
He knew the moon Authority was a small one because nothing larger had originally been needed. There had been room for twenty-one Phansuris and Ahabarians and Thykerites and Moon and Belt people together with their secretaries and aides and servants. Over the centuries, however, Authority had become corpulent, adding an advisory here, creating a panel there, appointing a temporary study commission that survived over the centuries to create other (temporary) commissions of its own. Now Authority filled every cubic inch of the moon’s hollowed-out interior and domed surface, and its constant complaint was that there was no room for all its people. Authority had become an entity larger than its purpose and too unwieldy for its duties. It was swollen, gross, quivering with indulgent fat.
And the people were the same. Faros had met them. He knew they were effete and decadent and mostly old, living in environments of unquestioned, though artificial, beauty. Though they went away, from time to time, they always returned, to be soothed by privilege and to divert themselves with endless machinations.
Despite the numbers packed into Authority, the moon itself was no larger than it had ever been, no larger and no better defended, which was to say, not defended at all. No one on Authority had ever considered defending the moon, certainly not against Enforcement. Those on Authority did not often think of Enforcement and had never used it. Even when
