The Magister (Earthkeep) (27 page)

"I declare for all who will hear," Zude continued, "that there could never have been for me a calling more rich in pride and satisfaction, a calling more necessary in its time to the smooth operation of this planet's social processes, than that of the Femmedarme, the Amah or the Vigilante." 

A long silence held the speaker and her listeners in its custody. 

"But our job is finished.  Well done, and finished."  She studied the faces that surrounded her.  "In the traditions of public discourse," she went on crisply, "my task would be to remind you now of our
need
to abolish the Kanshoubu.  But I shall not speak of that, because focusing on need merely emphasizes a negativity, a sense of lack, and---"

"May I interrupt, Magister?"  The voice rose from Femmedarme Aga Malika Katir.  There was a general stir at the breach of protocol.

"To be sure," said Zude, graciously. 

"Magister Adverb," the Aga's crusty voice continued, "it sounds like you are about to launch into another of your
happiness
lectures.  I can't sit still for much more of that empty and excessively cheerful verbiage."  She looked at her colleagues.  "I think others may agree."

Vigilante Marshal Mead pounded the gavel. 

"Out of line, Aga Katir.  And it doesn't matter who agrees with you.  Magister Adverb has the floor."

Zude smiled easily at the Communication Escort.  "Marshal, the proposal before us is of unprecedented importance.  I'm glad to yield to any comments or questions, as long as I have opportunity for final appeal."

Mead's eyes swept the room.  "Granted," she announced.  "Without objection then, you are open to questions."  She gave a sharp rap to the gavel and settled back in her chair.

Zude faced Katir.  "Aga?"

"That's all," Katir mumbled.  "Just curb your enthusiasm, Magister Adverb.  Stick to causes and material issues, to good reason in controversy."

The Escort intervened coolly.  "The Magister can stick to whatever she pleases, Aga.  Any attitude on the part of a speaker is appropriate, unless it becomes disruptive."  She cast her eyes around the gathering.  "A little enthusiasm about anything might not hurt the Heart right now."

"Escort Mead," said Amah Jing-Cha Honora Wang, one of the few in the room still sporting dark hair.  At Mead's nod she addressed Zude.  "Our proceedings here have been thorough, but we haven't looked hard enough at the fact that Magister Lin-ci Win is not with us.  I want to hear it from you, and from Magister Lutu if she will speak: How can you hope to convince us to act on this proposition when Magister Win opposes it?"

Zude drew in a breath and intentionally relaxed.  Heart Members stirred and focused on Zude with sharpened attention. 

"Jing-Cha," she said, "Magister Win has not opposed the abolition of the Kanshoubu.  Her lack of comment must be interpreted as neutrality."  She paused.  "Any member of this body, for instance, has the option of silence.  She can step aside when the Heart's Desire is taken, so as not to block the will of the group.  Magister Win is stepping aside, allowing you," her hand swept the assembly, "to make the decision.  She cannot be said to be opposed.  She is simply silent."

Amah Matrix Major Joann Nikobishi objected.  "I know Lin-ci Win well, Magister.  In my experience of her, she has an opinion on every subject.  She is fair-minded, yes.  And careful in her weighing of the evidence.  But indecisive?  Never.  She has been asked countless times over the last month to support the abolition of the Kanshoubu.  And she is silent.  Clearly, she has decided not to do so."

"Marshal," growled Sub-Aga Mollie Mordecaia, "she has also been asked countless times over the last month
not
to support the abolition of the Kanshoubu.  Her silence might equally mean she has decided
to
support it."

Malika Katir exploded.  "Negative, Sub-Aga!  It's not the same thing--"

"Order!"  Marshal Mead's gavel cracked.  "We will not drown ourselves in speculation here!"

"With respect, Aga Katir," Femmedarme Mordecaia exclaimed, gesturing forcefully with her functional left arm.  "Escort Mead is right.  We can't dicker around trying to second-guess Magister Win."  She focused on Amah Wang.  "I've been in the Heart a long time and, to be honest, Jing-Cha, I'm like you.  It galls me to think I have to act on this proposal when it comes from only two of our Commanders-In-Chief." 

Slowly, she rotated her deeply reclined chair and scanned every member of the group. 

"But, like it or not," she grimaced, "we're going to have to decide this thing without Magister Win's opinion.  I think the Heart is capable of doing that."

"Sub-Aga," said Zude quietly, "I think you are right." 

"Magister Adverb," Vigilante Mariner Myrtha Bisbruja interposed, looking at Zude over her old-fashioned glasses.

"Mariner Bisbruja," Zude acknowledged, meeting her gaze.

"And Magister Lutu," Bisbruja said pointedly.  All eyes turned to Yotoma, whose concentrated stare had shifted from the outside tree to a seam in the wall segment across the circle from her.  When Yotoma did not respond, Myrtha Bisbruja audibly released a short breath and turned her attention back to Zude.

"Magister," she said, pushing her glasses further down her nose, the better to see Zude over their rims, "though we have requested it a number of times, you have given us no realistic hint of what the effect would be of abolishing the Kanshoubu."

Zude shook her head. 

"Mariner, I can't tell you — and neither can anyone in this room — what would happen if we
kept
the Kanshoubu.  Would the preservation of the Kanshoubu stop the children from dying?  Or bring back the animals?  Would it produce an answer to the question of why they have chosen to leave us?  If we
kept
the Femmedarmes and the Vigilantes and the Amahs, would children suddenly begin to be born again?  If we
kept
the Kanshoubu, would the existence of the human enterprise be guaranteed?"

Zude put her hand on her chest.  "If I could do so without offending Aga Katir, I would sketch for you the glorious visions of the future that to me are the clear consequence of abolishing our peacekeeping corps.  But, alas, there is no reasoning behind these visions, no material causation, only my desires and my convictions." 

She smiled broadly at Katir.  "And so, I will refrain." 

There were low chuckles and some modest shifts of position in the big chairs. 

Bisbruja moved forward in her seat and leaned on an armrest.  "Magister, many of us here in this assembly are amazed that this proposal of yours has even gotten as far as this body."  She still peered at Zude over her glasses.  "We listen to you only out of respect for your office. . .and, some of us, still out of respect for you."  She removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes.  "We also listen to you because we are desperate," she looked up, "desperate for any hope that there may be some future for our species."

The Mariner shook her head, reclaimed her assertiveness.  "I agree that, in our present distress, some simplifying of government structures might be called for, that we might best be moving toward some changes that would allow us merely to accept our fate and live out these final days in peace."  Her voice rose in volume.  "But why the Kanshoubu?  Why target for oblivion the one agency that can guarantee us that peace, the one agency that can save us from widespread anarchy and sheer chaos?  Why not the Central Web or the Size Bureau?  Why do you choose the largest group of public servants on the planet — and not only the largest, but the most efficient and most dedicated.  Why single out our Shrieves?" 

The Mariner shook her glasses at Zude.  "Where is the
justice
, or the
good sense,
in focusing upon the Kanshoubu?" The glasses trembled visibly in her outstretched hand.

Her question echoed in the silence of the Gather-Room.

"I am far from believing in the death of our species, Mariner Bisbruja," Zude said.  She turned and looked into the tough old eyes of Vigilante Captain Luz Adelia Zurbarán of Nicaragua, whose unfailing support she, as a brand new Matrix Major, had once so heavily depended upon.  Zurbarán's countenance revealed nothing, only an alert attentiveness.  Zude continued.

"I pick the Kanshou because there are some jobs that only Kanshou are capable of performing.  The eradication of the expectation of violence is one of those tasks."

Zude quietly, slowly scanned the circle, inviting each woman there to question further.  When no one responded, she looked again at Yotoma.  The Femmedarme Magister still gazed into space.

"Vigilante Bisbruja is wise to ask about justice," Zude continued, "because that's what our work has been about.  Justice, in the face of malevolence.  Justice, in the face of exploitation or ignorance.  Justice." 

Zude closed her eyes briefly and drew in a long breath. 

"I have to tell you all of my truth now," she declared, "for you deserve to know it, whatever the consequences."  She tilted her head upward and said, "I can no longer serve the law.  I can no longer serve justice.  The time of law and justice has passed."

No member of the Heart moved even the smallest muscle.

Abruptly, Zude turned toward Flossie Yotoma Lutu.  Sure enough, the Femmedarme Magister's warm brown eyes were smiling now into her own, alert and present, as they had not been for days.  Heartened, Zude's voice rose in volume.  "Colleagues, in the new world that is on our doorstep, justice and the law are antiquated concepts.  I am ready – I believe we all are ready now -- to see that laws create crime, that prisons create criminals, and that what we have called justice is actually a hindrance to human freedom."

Zude addressed Vigilante Bisbruja directly.  "Far from fearing the anarchy that you mention, Mariner, I now understand that anarchism has been a pathfinder for the next stage of human evolution.  Kanshoumates, the old wineskins of law and justice cannot contain the flood of forgiveness that is upon the world."

Out of the corner of her eye, Zude registered the forward movement of Adjutant Major Rabia Nuruk of Istanbul, her face a landscape of suppressed emotion.  Zude waited, calm and respectful, for the woman's outburst.

Nuruk expelled a short disgusted breath, waved a dismissive hand, shook her head.  She sat back in an attitude of enforced patience, looking grimly at the speaker.

Zude spoke again.  "In the vocabulary of peacekeeping officers throughout history, I have just uttered an indecency:  f
orgiveness
.  Forgive the murderer, Magister Adverb?  Forgive the rapist?  And I reply, 'Precisely.  Forgive them all.  Do not arrest them, do not prosecute them, do not imprison them.  Any punishment due them resides in their own full knowledge of the act they have committed, and not in the meting out of punishment by any human tribunal.  Let them be.'"

Zude surveyed the room.  She found the bobbing gray head of Vice-Magister Winifred Glee, and the raised thumb, inconspicuous but explicit, of Flossie Yotoma Lutu.  Some of the faces were astonished or puzzled, others incredulous.  Still others registered distaste or anger.  Some faces Zude could not read.  None, she observed, wore the mask of boredom. 

Her gaze fell upon Amah Mariner First Class Kit Lunming from Shanghai, an old friend.  Zude noted that Lunming had not dropped her head in embarrassment, but sat in concentrated attention, her chin leaning on the hollow molded by her forefinger and thumb.  A wave of gratitude passed over Zude.  It eased her more massive bodily tensions and refined the edges of the path before her.  She pressed her lips together in a half-smile at Lunming for the gift that the Amah had unwittingly bestowed.

She turned to Malika Katir, who had originally interrupted her.  "Aga, you ask me to stick to 'good reason in controversy,' as rightly you should.  At least in principle, reason has always been our straightedge, the standard by which we measure our ideas and actions.  I have been first to say to those who would fight, 'Come, let us reason together.'"

Zude clasped her hands behind her back and turned casually, assessing another broad range of response in her listeners. 

"But reason has imprisoned me in its own closed system, in its own rules and fallacies.  It has limited my thoughts and thus my reality.  Reason is only a one-minute increment on a mile-wide spectrum.  It is the contour of one snowflake in the swirl of conformations that comprise the storm of my human capabilities.  I have focused upon that one tiny increment, upon that single snowflake, to the exclusion of the spectrum and the storm, and I have granted to reason a supremacy that must give way now to my full human legacy."

Rabia Nuruk slumped further back into her chair, a heap of disapproval.  Zude deliberately turned to her. 

"Adjutant Major, reason can no longer serve as my sole measuring stick for value or policy decisions in human affairs.  Alone, it’s too confining.  I'm using other abilities now, abilities that, in the service of reason, I have belittled and disparaged: my feelings, my hunches and, most of all, my ability to visualize beyond my daily experiences."

Zude had grown breathless in her description.  Purposefully, she calmed herself and met the eyes of individual Members of the Heart, addressing some by name.  "It's the magic of my life that I'm speaking of, Sea Captain Victoria Painter.  I'm talking about the things I've always called coincidence or miracles.  Crazy things, Sky Commander del Dragón, which I now realize are among the proper guidelines for human action."

Zude opened her arms.  "Perhaps, my colleagues, the rumors are true.  Perhaps I have lost my mind."  She laughed and dropped her arms.  "Whatever I may have lost," she said quietly, "I have gained an extraordinary peace and an exhilarating passion."  She extended her hand.  "I invite you to join me in those newfound joys."

"I'll join you, Magister Adverb," said a voice from behind her.  Every eye turned to Femmedarme Magister Lutu, who sat calmly surveying the Heart.  "And, if you'll permit me, I will speak briefly now."

"With great pleasure," said Zude, sinking easily into her own chair.