Empire & Ecolitan (34 page)

“It's…I like it,” he finally admitted.

“Thank you. We hoped you would. Kirsten and I, I mean.”

“You did a very nice job.”

“I know, but it's more important that you like it. We wanted you to feel at home.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“Thank you. Really don't know what else to say…”

“You don't have to. You're pleased…but I think it brings back old memories.”

“It does,” he admitted, “but that's not necessarily bad. I still think I'm going to like living here very much.”

“We hope so.”

“So do I. So do I.”

“If you need anything else…”

“No…I'll be fine.”

“There's a package on the counter downstairs. It has directions to everywhere and the times everything is open. Just ask anyone around.”

Jimjoy followed her down the railed and open stairs, watching from the open door until the pale green of the electrocar had purred from sight.

Then he sank onto the couch, staring out at the gathering thunderclouds, listening to the winds of his own thoughts.

27 Janus 3646
New Augusta

“P
ROFESSOR, ACCORDING TO
Kashin,
Theories of Warfare
, a government fully backed by a people with an ideology has an advantage over a pragmatic system. What you said seems to contradict that.” The youngster with the barely concealed smile waited.

Jimjoy quirked his lips before replying. “Mr. Frenzill, Kashin included a number of qualifying statements. Do you, perhaps, remember them?”

“All other political conditions being equal…including real and not apparent resources…” Student third class Frenzill's smile had vanished.

Jimjoy studied the class. All twenty looked awake. Roughly one-third appeared to understand the argument.

“Before we go on, for the benefit of Ms. Vaerolt, Mr. Yusseff, and the remainder of the third row, I'd like to repeat the point to which he has taken polite exception.
Ideology does not win wars or battles
. Fanatics or even true believers have won wars, and they have lost an even greater number.” Jimjoy paused. Three other heads showed mild interest, although Gero Yusseff was still asleep with his eyes open.

“Mr. Frenzill, what caused the fall of the Halstani Military detente?”

“The rise of the Matriarchy, ser.”

“Wrong, Mr. Frenzill. That is a tautology, a definition, if you will. The Matriarchy, despite the Hands of the Mother and a strong ideological hold on the populace of Halston, had been unsuccessful for more than a generation in even gathering seats in the popular assembly.” Jimjoy surveyed the faces.

“Ms. Jarl?”

“Wasn't the Matriarchy successful after the Bles disaster?”

“What was the Bles disaster, exactly?”

“Professor…everyone knows that. It was news for weeks.”

“Humor me, Ms. Jarl. Tell me what it was.”

The blonde squirmed slightly in her seat, licking her lips. “Well…the fusion power station malfunctioned…and most of the military command was celebrating nearby…so no one was left to stop the Matriarchy…”

“Very convenient, wasn't it.” Jimjoy watched the students shifting their weight, realizing that he was leading somewhere. “Now, does anyone want to speculate on the probability of only the
second
power plant accident of this magnitude in recorded history occurring at a time when it would wipe out not only an entire planetary government but also the majority of the military High Command? Or the fact that the government which took over had been unable to do so through conventional means?”

“Are you suggesting…it was deliberate?”

“I'm not a great believer in coincidences. Are you? Would you stake your life on them, Ms. Jarl?”

“Professor?” asked student third class Frenzill.

“Yes, Mr. Frenzill? You were about to observe that I had said ideology did not win wars, and here is a case where the popular ideology won?”

“Yes, ser…”

“There is a significant difference between causality and apparent results. The cause of the Bles disaster is still unknown. What gained the Matriarchy power was not its popular ideology, but the annihilation of its opposition. To the degree ideology allows you to mobilize superior resources, tactics, or commitment, it will win battles or wars. But…the distinction is important…
ideology does not win wars
. Any comments? Questions?”

There were still too many blank faces. He sighed. “All right. Your assignment, due five days from now, is a short essay. No more than one thousand words. Take a position. Give me a logical proof of why ideology wins wars or why it doesn't. Any essay which does not support one position or the other will be failed. Any essay which repeats my argument blindly will also be failed.” Another look around the class, and he could see that at least three students glared at Frenzill.

“Is that clear?”

“Yes, Professor.”

“Now…beyond the question of ideology is the main point of today's lesson. Mr. Yusseff? MR. YUSSEFF. Thank you.” He waited momentarily for the groggy Yusseff to realize he was the focus of attention. “Mr. Yusseff, you may get the assignment from either Ms. Jarl or Mr. Frenzill later. Since we are attempting to analyze the basis of military power, my question to you is: Do you agree with Kashin's theorem of pragmatic causality? Explain why or why not.”

More squirms around the classroom, Jimjoy noted. Despite the openness of the Institute, sometimes he wondered how much intellectual challenge the students actually got. Repressing a sigh, he waited. He liked the hand-to-hand better, but Sam had insisted on Jimjoy's undertaking the warfare course. Jimjoy suspected a lot of others could have taught it better, but he owed everything to Sam…so…all he could do was his best.

T
HE NAMEPLATE READ:

 

Thelina X. Andruz, S.F.I.

Meryl G. Laubon, S.F.I.

 

With a shrug, he stepped up to the doorway.

Tap…tap
…The knocks on the heavy and dark-stained wooden door were even, almost precise. Jimjoy shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He wished he weren't standing at the doorway, but Thelina had continued to avoid him, time after time. When she couldn't, she was so politely professional that the planetary poles were warmer than the atmosphere surrounding her.

The door opened silently. Jimjoy tried to keep his mouth shut. Thelina's silver hair was cut short, barely longer than his own, which, although he was overdue for a haircut, was scarcely more than five centimeters long. “Come on in, Professor.” Thelina shrugged as she stepped back from the half-open doorway. Wearing pale green shorts and a short-sleeved blouse, she was barefoot.

“Professor?”

“I'm happier with titles right now.”

Jimjoy followed her through a single long room with kitchen facilities at one end, including a glass-topped table in a dark wood frame, and a sitting area with chairs, two low tables with matching lamps, and a couch arrayed around a small stove at the other end. Open and railed stairs rose from the right side of the entry door to the second level. The far wall was comprised of two floor-to-ceiling windows and a set of French doors in between. Jimjoy followed her out to the timbered rear deck. Three wooden chairs were spaced around a heavily varnished dark oak table. A single half-full mug sat on the table, and a book—
Field Tactics
—lay closed beside it.

He glanced overhead, but, despite the mugginess and the overhanging clouds, he could see no rain to the west.

“Have a seat. Would you like some cafe?”

“No, thank you. A glass of water?” He took the chair opposite hers.

“No problem.” Thelina slipped back through the louvered door.

As he waited, he surveyed the deck. The pattern seemed similar to the house he had just been assigned, but he'd never been in any of the other senior staff homes before. His quarters—or Thelina's and her colleagues' quarters—seemed incredibly spacious for fellows of the Institute. He shook his head.

“Your water, Professor.” Thelina placed a heavily tinted tumbler—no ice—on the table before him. He caught a scent of something, perhaps trilia, before she efficiently sat down at the other side of the table.

“How about ‘Jimjoy'?”

“It lacks distinction and the stature reflecting your deep and valuable experience, Professor Whaler.”

He sighed. “What about…‘I'm sorry'?”

“That wouldn't be a bad start, Professor—if you really meant it.”

“I might. If I could figure out what I said that was so offensive.”

“After rewriting history? You really mean that, don't you?” She took a sip from the dark green mug. “You are even denser than…there isn't an apt comparison…” She kept shaking her head intermittently.

Rewriting history? Jimjoy sipped the water, trying to keep from frowning. Rewriting history…she couldn't mean that. Even if he had said something wrong or misleading in his warfare class, she had been cool to him before that. Cooler than the water in front of him. He took another sip.

Thelina touched the book, turned it over, but left it on the table, saying nothing, not even looking his way.

He took a third sip, concentrating on the taste of the water, a coolness he hadn't thought about in a long time. Even without ice it was cold. Cold and fresh. Like a lake called Newfound, where he had stood beneath the firs sighing in the winds and listened to the steady lap, lap of the water.

That had been a life, before…there, once, he had been happy. She had been as clear and beautiful and unspoiled as the lake itself. Christina—he wondered what might have been if he had accepted the life he had been born to instead of trying to escape. Yet here he was, trying for still another life…

“Professor?”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Professor Whaler, I do believe you were kays away.”

“I probably was, Ecolitan Andruz. I probably was.”

“Probably?”

“All right, Senior Fellow of the Institute, Ecolitan Andruz. You are, as usual, one hundred percent correct. My thoughts were elsewhere.”

This time Thelina was the one to sigh. “Just about the time you start to act human, you revert to the standard Imperial protocols.”

Jimjoy caught her green eyes and stared directly at her. “We're too old for games, Thelina. And too much rides on us to have time for games.”

She returned the gaze, so directly that he finally blinked. “Professor, that attitude is exactly what is wrong with the Empire and your thinking. First, we all die in the end. All we have is the trip through life. Without games, without spice, and without meaning and love along the way, life doesn't offer much. It doesn't help when you distort what really happened along the way. And second, no one is indispensable. Not me. Not you.”

…thurummmm
…Jimjoy looked over his shoulder, toward the west. The darkening clouds and the mist lines below the clouds spelled an oncoming storm.

Whhhipppp
…A gust of wind, with the scent of rain, flipped open the back cover of the book Thelina had turned over.

“Do you want to wait for hard evidence, Professor Whaler, or shall we retire to the living room?'

“I bow to your superior knowledge, Ecolitan Andruz.” Jimjoy picked up his tumbler and stood. “What about the chairs?”

“They'll be fine. They're oylwood.” Thelina closed the book, picked it up, and reached for her now-empty mug. She did not look back.

Jimjoy closed the louvered door, nearly bumping into Thelina. “Excuse me.” He stepped back quickly, pushing away the thought triggered by her standing so close. Why, he still didn't understand, not with her continual hostility.

Halting, he turned and watched the clouds darkening and tumbling upward even as the rain began to spatter on the deck outside. A single shaft of sunlight played upon a tree-covered mountainside kays westward. As Thelina ran water in the small kitchen, he watched the line of sunlight disappear.

“How about an amendment to my last statement?”

“No apologies this time?” She had replaced the mug with a tumbler of water. She set it on the table and eased into the chair, tucking one leg under her.

“Thelina, I am what I am. I probably should change some of that, but to apologize for what I am is hypocrisy.” He sat down in the chair opposite hers and sipped from the glass he still carried. “You are right about life being a journey. That was what I was thinking about when I drifted off. But…”

“Surely you aren't going to claim that you are indispensable?”

“Not indispensable…not exactly. The universe, or most of the people in it, could care less whether you or I exist, or about what we do. The universe could also care less whether we enjoy life and the journey it represents.

“Now, I can't claim to know history the way old Sergel Firion and his staff do. But there have been times in human and alien histories when individuals have made a difference. There have been discoveries that no one else besides a single scientist has even understood for decades. There have been political actions taken, battles won, and conquests made that have changed history because of a single and unique individual.” He paused and took another sip from the glass, grateful that Thelina was still at least seeming to listen.

“Likewise, some discoveries could have been made by dozens of individuals, and some battles and political actions were taken by possibly the worst of all possible candidates.

“As far as Accord is concerned, only a handful of individuals understands more than a fraction of the structural and political problems involved. You and I happen to be in that handful. Denying that is like denying”—he glanced out at the wet deck—“that it's raining outside. If we don't act, someone else will have to. Someone besides an ex-Imperial Special Operative and a former Hand of the Mothers.” He grinned at her and waited.

Thelina met his grin blankly. “What else have you figured out, Professor? Besides the obvious? That just makes what you did worse.”

“If you please, what did I do that was so inexcusable? And what is this rewriting of history?”

“Your whole warfare class is talking about it. How you pointed out how convenient it was for the Matriarchy—”

Jimjoy's stomach turned upside down.

Thelina stopped talking as she saw his face. “How can you be so perceptive and so dense? You didn't even realize…”

“No. It was used only as an example of how ideology by itself cannot gain control, of why force is required to obtain control.”

Thelina looked at the woodstove in the corner.

He took a deep swallow and finished the water, looking for somewhere to put the tumbler besides on the finished wood of the table.

“You destroyed Military Central.”

“You gave up.”

“No price too high for you, Professor…no burden too great?”

“There might…” He looked at her face and stood up. “You're angry because what I've said threatens your tight little conception of the universe. Because I've put my neck on the line and think you might have to also, if you believe what you say you do.”

“How can you even suggest that?”

“Because all you do is poke holes in what I've said and done. That's easy. Lord knows I've said and done a lot wrong. But you won't accept the fundamental truth of what I've said. You didn't like it when I told you in that cell in your mining station that first principles are first. I'll admit you're right. There is more to life than the end. But the Empire doesn't think that way, as you have so clearly pointed out. If you want to preserve the idea that the journey is more important than the destination, it means putting your sweet little ass on the line. Not once, but time after time. And I still don't like games. Games are different from love, and sunsets and sunrises.” Surprisingly, he had managed to keep his voice even.

Thelina's face was still expressionless, although her eyes looked cold.

“I'll think about what you said,” he finished. “Then…someday when you're in the mood…let me know.”

Thelina remained immobile in the chair, and started to open her mouth.

“Don't bother with another flip or sarcastic answer. Good day, Ecolitan Andruz.” Jimjoy walked straight to the front door, not looking back, and closed it quietly behind him.

As he walked down the wooden steps, he started to shake his head, then remembered and pulled at his chin instead. The dampness and splatter of the rain were welcome, despite the dull ache in his muscles from his ongoing efforts to regain his conditioning. All he'd wanted to do was apologize, to get a warm word or two, and now he'd made it ten times worse.

He began to run, heading out around the lake and hoping that his muscles would hurt even more by the time he reached home.