Setosha - the Beating Heart
Copyright© 2010 by Prince von Vlox
Chapter 19
Medina, City of His Word
Tabor of Vageillon looked up from the Commentaries of the Prophet Sowerth. A man in a plain brown robe stood at the door to his study. “Yes?”
“You are needed,” the man said. “The Prophet...”
Tabor marked his place and stood. “Is he well?”
“It is best if you come.”
Tabor could gain nothing more from the man. He followed him across The City of His Word to the residence of the Prophet, a small, detached building set in a Contemplation Glade. There he was met by men charged with protecting the Prophet, a necessity since the Schismatics had used assassination to affect Church policy so many years before.
“The Prophet is expecting you and the other Successors,” one of the men said.
Tabor found the Prophet Wofar, Beloved of God, in his office. The Prophet was a tall man with silver hair, and he was sitting on a mat on the floor, his grace blade in front of him. Ominously, it was pointed directly at him. The chain and sigil that marked him as the Prophet was beside him, not around his neck.
The other two Successors were shown in. Under the traditions of the Church, one of the three of them would become the next Prophet.
“I have sinned,” the Prophet Wofar said in the quiet of the room. “I allowed myself to be corrupted. In my folly, I have let the Faithful astray, turning aside from the True Path down one filled with darkness and danger. Today, I will stand before the Supreme Judge to answer for my sins.”
“Perhaps something less drastic,” Successor Kendez of Sultass said. “A Journey of Repentance and Witnessing--”
The Prophet shook his head. “Blood needs blood. When you have seen the details of my failures, you will understand there is no other way.”
“Suicide is forbidden by the Scriptures,” Tabor said.
“Not necessarily true,” the Prophet replied. “There are times when it is an absolute necessity. I can only serve as an object lesson. The price the Faithful will pay in the future for my crimes...” He sighed. “There are reports on my desk. Read them. Please hurry; I have no desire to put off my judgment.”
Tabor and the other two found the reports on the Prophet’s desk. He felt a profound shock as he read of the deeds of the Faithful over the last few years. There had been rumors, quiet words uttered in prayers, but they only hinted at the foulness he read.
The Colandran Empire, once a benefactor of the Faithful of Medina, had used the Faithful in their current war. Teams from Medina had carried out murder and destruction at the behest of the Emperor. Even the most cursory reading showed that these deeds served Imperial interests, but not those of the Faithful or the One they worshipped.
“Do you think this brought about the attack?” Kendez asked softly. The people of Medina were still reeling from that deed only a few months in the past. It was still anyone’s guess who the author of that attack was, but that was of no concern at the moment.
Tabor closed the folder. “It’s possible. The violence of war can never be contained. And this ... this corruption...” The Emperor had publicly forsworn The Light--the explanation was that he could not openly choose one religion over another as such a decision was a matter of individual choice--and now used the Faithful to conduct the secret parts of his war. The Emperor had even forced the closure of all missions from the Faithful on Lexeon, the capital of the Colandran Empire.
Have we, Tabor asked himself, been in service to God? Or have we been in service to the Emperor? The Prophet Wofar had clearly chosen the Empire.
Given all of that, he now understood why the Prophet Wofar faced his grace blade. Tabor could see a book of Commentaries open on a nearby table. He checked the title, and nodded. Some of the prophets of the past had called suicide an abomination in the eyes of God. Others, and especially the Prophet Besron who had written these Commentaries, held that a voluntary sacrifice of one’s life in service of God was acceptable. The Prophet Wofar had obviously decided that relinquishing his life would serve God.
Tabor knelt and prayed, seeking guidance. What advice could he give the Prophet? He wasn’t surprised to see the seniormost Gnostic Princes in the room, praying as well.
“I am a weak man,” the Prophet said in a low voice. “What you read is only the beginning. Learn how I was tempted. Learn how I thought I was strong enough to resist and failed. Let this be my final lesson: no man is above temptation.” He motioned to one of the Brethren who stood against the wall. “It is time. Attend me.”
That Brother bowed his head. After a prayer, he took the white robe in the corner and placed it around the Prophet. “May you face the Supreme Judge with a clear heart,” he said, using the words tradition demanded for a time like this.
The Prophet nodded slightly. “Learn from me,” he repeated. He took up his grace blade. He caressed it once, lovingly, and then placed the point against his neck. He gave the assembled men a sad smile and then thrust up. After a few seconds, his body toppled to the floor. Blood pooled under his head and spread out across the floor.
The Successors prayed. After a minute, Kendez of Sultass looked up. “The Prophecy is not for me,” he said at last. “That is not my Path in this life. I see another: service as a teacher to the Faithful. I waive my rights.” He bowed to the others, rose, and retreated to the side of the room.
“And I,” Zandel of Kormak said. “I want it too much. The Prophecy is an obligation. Its power tempts me too much.”
The Gnostic Princes stepped forward. “And you, Tabor Vageillon,” the seniormost of them asked. “How say you?” It was not unheard of for all three Successors to decline the Prophecy.
Tabor felt a warm glow surround him. “The burden is more than one man can carry,” he said at last. “But with God’s help, I will do my best to illuminate the Path for the Faithful.”
As one, the Gnostic Princes bowed. “Tabor of Vageillon, Beloved-of-God,” one of them said, pronouncing his new title for the first time. “We accept your guidance.”
The Prophet Tabor thought of what he’d just learned. If the Prophet Wofar was correct, and he had no reason to suspect otherwise, the Faithful faced a difficult path. He would need all of the guidance he could get to illuminate that Path for the Faithful.
He rose to his feet and bowed to the Brethren and the Gnostic Princes. They led him to a nearby meditation room. There, they draped him with the chain and sigil of the Prophet. The links felt curiously heavy, as if to remind him of the burden he now carried.
“Your Grace,” the eldest Gnostic Prince said, offering his hands in supplication.
“Your Grace,” the eldest Lay Brethren repeated with the same gesture.
Tabor nodded. With that simple ceremony, all of the weight of the Faithful landed on his shoulders. “We have much to do,” he said. “First, we must assure the Faithful. The times being what they are...”
He didn’t share what he’d read. There were forces and people among the Faithful who would feel cut adrift by a change in Prophets. They might turn their hand against the Prophet Tabor, just as the Schismatics had centuries before. He didn’t need divine guidance to see that the immediate Path was fraught with danger. But he would have to act, and both Kendez and Zandel could assist him there.
A new Prophet meant a new direction for the Faithful. There was much that needed to be changed, and the sooner that task was started, the easier it would be.
Government Center, Home
“Second Officer Silversmith and Admiral Carter,” Stena announced, holding open the door to Eldest Marie’s office.
“Admiral,” Eldest Marie said. “Officer Silversmith.” Her voice was cold and her face blank.
“Ma’am,” Admiral Carter replied, saluting for both officers. Second Officer Silversmith came to attention beside her.
Eldest Marie looked up at the tall Scout officer. Only a few hours before, Admiral Carter had told her what this officer had done. To her credit, Silversmith had brought word directly back herself, and then stood ready to accept the consequences. Eldest Marie was still trying to imagine exactly how bad those might be.
“Second Officer Silversmith.” She already had Silversmith’s personnel file and her report on the top of the pile on her desk. She glanced through them one last time, knowing that nothing had changed in the last half hour. “I have read this document,” she began, tapping it with her forefinger. “I must say that yours is the most complete and candid report that I have ever had the extreme displeasure to read.”
She glanced at Admiral Carter, who stared at a spot on the wall above Eldest Marie’s head. “Ordinarily, this is a situation the Navy’s Legal Offices would handle. Unfortunately, there are circumstances of gross misappropriation of resources and dereliction of duty that require a policy to be issued to the Navy.”
She tapped the folder once more for emphasis. “In all this report, you did not give me one single reason why I should not have you clapped in chains and delivered to the people of Medina as a criminal. I am curious about that point. Was there something I missed?”
“No, ma’am.” Second Officer Silversmith stared straight ahead, her face pale and sweating.
Eldest Marie considered what she could do to rescue the woman from this awful tangle of brilliantly executed, yet fundamentally flawed genius. She shook her head slowly. Things seemed to get worse every day. Only ten days before, she had visited Corey and her sibs, recovering in the hospital, and then gone to stand silently in the Family’s Garden of Memories to witness Kara and Eileen Burton’s ashes as they were mingled with those of their ancestors.
“Without warning or provocation,” Eldest Marie said, “you attacked a neutral system, destroying two of their ships and vaporizing their one commercial station along with its entire staff, visitors, and representatives of other systems. For all I know, you killed some of our own people.” Officer Silversmith jerked as if struck. Clearly, she had never considered that possibility.
“You caused extensive damage to the upper atmosphere of Medina, exposing their entire population to the risk of increased ultraviolet radiation. We might be able to help them with that, but only if they let us. You wrecked countless electronic and electrical devices throughout their largest continent, which chance placed below your missiles. This caused accidents and deaths among the surface population. Innocents died, Officer Silversmith. If you wanted to start a war, you may very well have succeeded. I cannot think of a more certain way than an unprovoked attack on civilians on such a massive scale.”
“There was provocation, ma’am,” Second Officer Silversmith replied, her voice a whisper they could barely hear. “They attacked us first.”
“I read that.” Eldest Marie flipped the report open to a page she had marked earlier. “At the time we did not know with certainty that the people who attempted to assassinate Admiral Korina and Captain Andersen were from Medina. More to the point, we did not know if they were acting for Medina. We still don’t. We have to presume someone is innocent until we know otherwise, Second Officer. We cannot assume that they’re guilty, and we cannot assume, without proof, that someone from a planet represents the official policy of that planetary authority. I find it ironic that your case is representative of that very point.” She felt her throat tightening again and paused, taking another slow, deep breath.
“Ma’am,” Second Officer Silversmith said, “the evidence, as I understood it, indicated the assassins were from Medina.”
“Stena,” Eldest Marie called.
“Ma’am?” Stena replied, appearing warily in the doorway.
“Did I miss something? Are we at war with Medina?”
“No, ma’am, we are not. That is, we have not heard that we are at war with them.” She pointedly did not say anything about Second Officer Silversmith’s report.
“Thank you, Stena.” Eldest Marie turned back to Second Officer Silversmith. “Why didn’t you attack Blue Water? Or Faraday? Why not them?”
“Ma’am, everybody knows Medina and the Empire are--”
“What everybody knows and what actually is are worlds apart,” Eldest Marie cut her off. “Officially Medina bears the same status to us as Faraday, Prenger’s Station, Blue Water, or any of the other single-systems. They are all neutrals in this war, and neutrals are not attacked.”
Eldest Marie shifted her focus. She had made her position clear, and she would not argue details. “Admiral Carter, did Second Officer Silversmith take and pass all the required courses at the Navy’s Command & Staff School?”
“Aye, ma’am, she did.”
Eldest Marie turned to the Scout Officer. “Second Officer Silversmith, do you have any idea of the effects of the weapons the Navy wields?”
“I’ve had the courses, ma’am.”
“In other words, you don’t know, not really. Thousands of people died because of your actions, Second Officer. Innocent people died, and you killed them. They are dead as surely as if you held a gun to their heads and pulled the trigger. There are mothers who lost their babies and children who have no mothers, who maybe have no family at all today because of what you did.
“Commanding officers in our Navy are entrusted with weapons that can kill entire populations in the blink of an eye. This is a terrible responsibility. There are otherwise competent people we wash out of the combat branch of our Fleet every year simply because they have no concept of what their actions mean and have no feeling for the consequences of those actions. I sincerely hope you are not one of those people, Second Officer.” She paused, knowing the effect her next words would have. “How will you explain your actions to your siblings?” she asked in a near whisper.
There was no sound at all in the room for at least a full minute. It seemed more like an hour.
Eldest Marie looked at Admiral Carter. “Volyn, a word with you, please.” She stepped into the corner, lowering her voice. “Otherwise a good officer?” she asked, knowing Officer Silversmith could overhear that remark.
“Aye, ma’am. Excellent scout.”
“She’s forever disbarred herself from Scouts,” Eldest Marie said. “She’s forever barred from any command deck or any duty that takes her into space.” She looked out the window at the lights of First Landing reflecting off the river. It was raining again. This was turning into another dismal wet summer in the lowlands. She wondered how it was back home. She wished she was back in the mountains, or any place other than this room.
“What am I going to do with her, Volyn?” Admiral Carter started to say something, and Eldest Marie raised a hand, stopping her. “That was a rhetorical question. As I said, we must have a policy decision. I know you want a court, and you may get one. Or you may not.” She smiled thinly, with no humor at all. “This is one of those rare times when the Eldest of a family wars with the Eldest of all the families.”
“You mean you actually agree with what she did?” Volyn was shocked.
“Absolutely not. I was horrified when I found out, and I still am. I am ashamed by what she has done. This act is a bloody stain on all of the families, not just on the career of an otherwise excellent officer. We can’t have people going off on their own to strike at innocents because they think someone is involved in the war. It’s illegal, it’s unethical, and it’s immoral. There are certain things you just do not do, especially if you are an officer. We expect our officers to have a maturity of judgment that I do not find in her case. She has not had any children of her own, has she?”
It was not a question, and the Admiral knew it, but she shook her head anyway. “Scouts are the one exception to our regulations about ship commanders having to be mothers.”
Eldest Marie sighed. “No mother could do what she did, though we both know that if it had been her own children killed on the streets of First Landing, any court would acquit her. You will describe this incident to anybody who objects in the future when you do not promote otherwise deserving officers, Volyn. I will support you or anyone else in that decision without question or hesitation.” Eldest Marie exhaled angrily and crossed her arms. “Now what?”
Admiral Carter closed her eyes and thought through the list of things she would need to convene a Judicial Review Board. Given the evidence and Silversmith’s own report, the outcome was foregone, but they had to go through the steps anyway. Unlike Second Officer Silversmith, they couldn’t take a shortcut through the whole process. Then she remembered another unhappy detail.
“Ma’am, just so you’ll know, Officer Silversmith probably can’t explain this to her sibs. Not in this life. Her family home is in the Archipelago on Setosha. A court decision might not be as foregone a conclusion as I thought.”
Eldest Marie froze, her face utterly expressionless. Finally, almost imperceptibly, she nodded. “Thank you, Admiral. I cannot consider that. I will ask you to do so, however. Help her, if you can, if anyone can.”
Eldest Marie turned, walked back to her desk, and sat on the edge looking up at Second Officer Silversmith.
“I could understand an impulsive act, Officer Silversmith. For instance, I can fully appreciate and commend your actions in the Graveyard System. You thought quickly in a situation that was almost impossible to resolve, and, as a consequence, I and several other Elders received back into our families daughters who would otherwise have been lost. That was skill, judgment, bravery, and more than a little luck coming together at the right time and the right place.
“However, from your own report on what you did at Medina, you had 22 days to reconsider what you were planning. Your own crew tried to talk you out of it several times, right up to the very last seconds of your attack. What compelled you to do this?”
“I have ... I had family on Setosha, ma’am,” Second Officer Silversmith whispered.
“So do I,” Eldest Marie said, her tone quiet. “I know some of them are undoubtedly dead right now. Before you were born, I lost kin to the Idenux. Each passing year, I lose more, daughters before, granddaughters now, and quite possibly great-granddaughters in the future. We know that the Empire is the cause of all this. Did I send our Fleet to destroy the capital planet of the Empire? No. Nor did I do some of the other things that are still within my power. Why? Because, while I had the power, while I had the capability to kill billions of Imperial citizens, that was not and is not an acceptable moral solution to this war.
“The only thing that separates us from non-sapient animals, Officer Silversmith, is that we are thinking, reasoning creatures. Every person is precious to all of us. It is our duty and our responsibility to preserve and nourish every person, no matter how difficult that may seem in these ugly times. To guide us in this duty, we have ethics and morality. I hear demands for revenge every day. Some of my peers are quite ready to take an eye for an eye. This is not acceptable. Every day, I am reminded of the hideous waste caused by this damned war. I could end it all their way, Second Officer. I could snuff out the Imperial home world. I could make the Imperial capital planet a burning waste that would terrify entire civilizations for generations not yet born.
“What would happen to our Families if I did that, Second Officer? What do humans do to those they fear?” She held the younger woman’s gaze for a moment, long enough to see the worry bloom. Maybe there was something to salvage from this mess after all.
“What divides us from the ignorant creatures, Officer Silversmith? What divides us from our enemies? We choose to operate in a moral way. This means there are rules and limits to our behavior. We choose to follow these rules, even when they keep us from doing what seems effective or efficient, even when they cost us more than it seems we can possibly bear. We choose not to do the things you did at Medina. We do not attack innocent civilians, even when we think a few of them were involved in provocative actions.”
She examined the perspiring officer very carefully. “You have courage, Second Officer. Instead of fleeing or trying to hide your actions, you stood up and acknowledged your responsibility. That is, however, not even a beginning. You must learn much more about ethical actions, morality, and the horror our weapons can wreak upon people who have never harmed us and never would have harmed us.”
She paused, feeling the idea coalesce. “I am going to make an example of you, Second Officer. I expect you to learn from this, and I expect others to learn from you.” Almost done, she thought. Take another breath. Liz, she told her predecessor, I know now where all those gray hairs came from so quickly. I hope I earn mine as well as you did yours.
Eldest Marie looked from the Scout officer to Admiral Carter and back again. “The next term of Command & Staff School begins in three days. Officer Silversmith, you are hereby assigned to the School as an instructor. There you will prepare and teach a class on Ethics and Morality in Commanders.
“In one month, you will appear before the entire Council of Families where you will report, in detail, on what you did at Medina, and on the consequences of your actions. I will warn you now that neither I nor Admiral Carter are as yet fully aware of the extent of the consequences of your actions. At the conclusion of that presentation, you will give the same presentation to the entire student body and faculty at the Command & Staff School.”
After a strained silence, Second Officer Silversmith swallowed dryly. “Is that all, ma’am?” Her voice was a whisper, almost too faint to hear.
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