THE CAUSE
Ophelia Keys
copyright 2013 Ophelia Keys
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Cover adapted from an image by Surge1223.
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The Cause
Sythe sat silently in the ambassadorial debrief room, legs tucked beneath the chair with the neatness of a cat’s tucked tail.
‘At the central system there is a disconnect’ the teacher smiled, anticipating their interest. ‘This is where logic ends.’
Sythe was staring at the young man in front of her. Too young to be an ambassador. He should never have been sent by his homeland. Her heart was beating hard, shaking her whole body. She used her focussed breathing, as she had been taught. She closed her fingers around the stylus until it dug into her palm, focussing her anger into one tiny point. It was simply a matter of control.
The white light flickered as a drain came upon the power. Her concentration broke. Sythe gasped. She looked around swiftly. No one had noticed the torn little noise. This was a safe place. She must stay still. She stared at the back of his head. Control.
‘And so ...’ smiled the teacher. ‘Where logic ends - what can we do?’
Sythe was trembling. He had spoken so lightly. ‘If Gast can only be bothered to send his daughter ...’. She had almost sprang up then, before the whole assembly. Eyes had turned to her, as if expecting it. But Lew had grasped her arm, and he was right. Or so she had thought. She was controlled. The hours since had been torture because she had been thrown into a dilemma. She could respect the Safe Place status, or she could take the required action to erase the insult. Both courses of action would deprive her father of honour. It was a disaster. And all because of one foolish utterance.
Pain dug into Sythe’s stomach. She recognised it as the pain that came with resistance. Resistance to what was required. He had insulted her. He had insulted her father. He had insulted the cause. She had been trained to act as soon as a decision was made. Delay was for the weak. The lights dipped once more. She launched herself across the desk. She seized his hair and drew his head back.
‘Coward!’ she hissed. He was gasping for breath, eye rolled toward her. ‘Why don’t you challenge me openly?’ Even in the midst of her fury, she scanned the room for counter-attack but there was no attack. The students stayed at their desks, watching like a herd of animals at the slaughterhouse. The convenor had her hands outstretched, conciliatory.
‘This is a Safe Place!’ she cried, but made no effort to come closer.
Sythe knew it was so, but the rage was so strong upon her. The rightful rage that demanded action. She was shaking hard and her blood was rushing in her ears. Her fingers dug deeper, deeper, until there was a burst of warm blood on her face. A rush of relief came over her. She laughed and fell back. The man coughed and fell onto his knees. She stood up and wiped her hands upon her note paper. She shook herself off like a wet animal and stepped into the passageway. No one tried to prevent her. She was only faintly aware that the convenor hurried beside her, click, click, click.
‘This is unfortunate! I’m not sure what to do in this circumstance.’ There was something under the clipped tones of her voice that Sythe couldn’t quite place. Anger? Confusion? Fear?
She moved away from her a little, to avoid the fear contagion. Not that she was susceptible. She paused in the passageway, lifted her wet face to the blazing false lights and trembled, her whole body rigid with the remnants of deadly purpose. It was ebbing from her now. But it was a pleasurable ebbing. As if a rough tide was drawing out of her, taking her fury with it. Leaving the stillness of a deep ocean. The convenor’s voice was a weak blur.
‘You understand that this is a Safe Place? You understand that you have contravened the Law?’ Her voice cracked and lifted strangely. It was grief, Sythe realised. And perhaps a kind of horror.
She shut her eyes for a moment. She felt hands firm on either side of her face. Power was flowing into her. She opened her eyes, looked straight into his. Lew was anchoring her. Perhaps he had tried to stop her in the assembly. But he must know that what she had done was correct. The best possible outcome.
‘What has happened?’ It was Lin’s voice in the background, polite. The convener seemed unable to speak.
‘I killed the ambassador of Rewin,’ she answered still staring at Lew. He would know if she had honoured the cause.
He gazed at her, full of magnetic belief. ‘He is immaterial,’ he said. ‘You did what was required.’
She was transfixed by his certainty, his dedication to the cause. Sythe was only faintly aware that Lin was there.
‘Your father will protect you,’ she was saying.
Sythe let her breath out in a sigh as Lew released her and turned to the convenor. A new energy came with the three of them together.
‘You know she will be spoken for,’ said Lew.
The convenor backed away. She felt the energy too. She groped behind her and struck the red button on the wall. ‘Of course, yes. But I think I must ...’
Her fear clearly required an answer. Lin took a graceful step toward her, but the passage was crowded by men and the click and voomph of charging weapons. Still, Sythe was an ambassador and they stood back a little from her and from Lew’s warning eyes. A medical team rushed past, useless now, giving a wide berth to the group of three. Sythe and Lin in their fighting clothes, sleek and black and ungrippably slippery. No man was admiring them now, she thought, with satisfaction. Now there was respect.
A tall man strode up to them, designated Captain by his pale epaulets. The convenor’s shoulders slumped with relief.
The Captain spoke with relative calm. ‘I’m afraid we need to discuss this ...’ he paused as a stretcher was carried past, doctors pushing on the darkening throat of the man. ‘Situation,’ he finished, looking at her with distaste.
Sythe walked past him. She walked into the cavernous grey hall, pursued by the captain and the guards.
‘You must carry the responsibility for this. He should not have been permitted to speak. If my action was in any way inappropriate,’ she allowed, her gliding step hesitating momentarily. ‘My father will speak for me.’
‘Inappropriate?’ whispered the convenor, apparently shocked, drawing a hungry look from Lin.
‘Your actions directly contravened the third law of the Assembly regarding the Six Safe Places. A transgression of the third level.’
Sythe stopped and looked the Captain full in the face. He had very steady blue eyes and did not flinch at the smear of blood across her jaw. She looked around at the growing circle of men, weapons charged.
‘My father will speak for me.’
He nodded, though the convenor made a noise of disgust. ‘If so, we will amend level three to level two. Exile from all Safe Places, rather than immediate execution.’
‘I will open the line to my father.’
The Captain interrupted. ‘We already have the line. If you will follow me.’ Sythe walked into the communications room, touching the wall with the fastidious care of a cat stepping onto uncertain ground. She exchanged a glance with Lew. This room was problematic. There was only one door and that was now behind her. Before her stretched a window, black with the night sky. She supposed it was properly reinforced, but who knew? She was confident she would not have to test it. Her father would speak for her.
She saw the shimmer where the line had been opened, stepped into it, felt her father’s presence. She composed herself. He detested uncertainty, and now she had none.
‘I have committed a level three transgression to right a wrong. They require you to speak for me.’
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. She could sense her father’s mind slowly working. A cold feeling started in her stomach. Disgusted by her own weakness, she was f
orced to recognise it as fear.
Then her father’s voice came. ‘No,’ he said. The line snapped and was gone.
There was confusion around her as she cleared the room in five long strides, aware of Lew lashing out at the nearest guard. Her hand hit the glass in a perfect focus of power that shattered the entire pane. Flash of contempt at their lax security. She felt the cool air flow over her as she jumped, was landing in a crouch on the sand, a little sooner than she expected. Behind her the shards still fell, twenty metres of crumbling glass. She sprang forward into the desert.
Betrayed. She was well clear of the metal dome and into the darkness. She must keep running now. Create distance. She was channelling the big cats that stalked the ruined cities of her home, moving like water, flowing. The guards did not seem to be following her. They assumed going out to the desert was the equivalent of death. But she was surprised. Usually they did everything to protect their prisoners, giving them the best of care before their execution. It was a