* * * * *
“Bad news from the reconnaissance craft. There’s no sign of Vaikyur-Erlenkov’s ship. The waves have been too rough to send in deep sea probes to search for wreckage, even if we can get permission to drop some. The plane may have gone down over land, and long-range infrared scanners report no advanced life form readings. I’m sorry, sir. Headquarters is suggesting we call off the search.”
The intercom in Senka Vaikyur’s private quarters switched off.
Vaikyur paused for only a moment to acknowledge it. He had spent the last few hours waiting for confirmation of authorization to enter the Classified Zone. So, Headquarters voted no. Vaikyur-Erlenkov was just one man.
Vaikyur had already prepared himself for the worst. As the message ended, he turned again to the computer on his desk where he had been sifting through years of classified information—information he hoped might still be accessible, mostly forgotten with the passage of time even to those who had top security clearance.
An experienced observer would have advised him that he was wasting his time. The records he was looking for were darn near impossible to find, and irrelevant to the present situation. But Vaikyur was one of the last of the old line of Alton’s officers. He was part of an elder generation that had long been in power when Fer-innyera Mardius Ezáitur and his ministry seized control of the Tiasennian government.
When that happened, the old line had done what the previous old line had done before them—they hid every real record of what had transpired in their ministry, implanting access files which only they knew how to access. Proof for posterity that they had to hope would one day see the light of day. Proof that what they had done was done in the best interests of the Tiasennian people. Proof, if necessary, that they had been loyal to the nation. Proof that they hoped would save their lives.
When Ezáitur seized power, he did what every former leader had done. He had his ministry literally re-write the past. Every file and piece of information that conflicted with his plans and political beliefs was evaluated, scrutinized, discredited if needs be, destroyed, or used to prove his cause, if his propaganda people could give it a new angle.
Dissenters, for at first there had been some, were taken prisoner and locked away. Most of these were the top officers of the old line. Ezáitur arranged for trumped-up charges against the ones he deemed most dangerous. “Confessions” were slowly forced from them by torturous means.
Vaikyur well remembered the show trials in which his former colleagues were accused of espionage, even years later. Little trace of the officers he had known remained in the broken, spiritless, and wretched shells of men that could not sit erect on the defense block. Those who were not so easily broken were tortured until they had been broken, and then most of them were executed. Some dissenters were found hanged in their containment cells or shot in their private quarters before ever coming to trial. In both cases, to all appearances the accused had committed suicide. That they actually had committed suicide was less certain.
The number of high-profile cases diminished over time. The new government succeeded in molding the young to its way of thinking. And, the few such as himself who possessed privileged information chose more and more to keep it to themselves.
Protests had to be internalized. It did little good to proclaim one’s private views. There had been some shouts of discontent from the public who had not anticipated Ezáitur’s coup. But in time, these had become denunciations against those who had vanished. They had no pity for the innocent accused. There was only room enough for fear. And a newly intensified sense of duty for which each Tiasennian, military or civilian, determined to prove his loyalty to the new government.
During the most difficult periods of military cleansing, friendship lost all value. Even now, years after Ezáitur had consolidated his leadership, any careless remark or criticism of his policies was enough for the “offender” to be called in for questioning. As Vaikyur well knew, many of the “dissenters” were simply scapegoats, blamed as secret saboteurs for the High Command’s failed projects, or to divert attention from their secret operations.
Over time, the civilians assumed that these troublemakers were truly being rightfully punished. The public was in the dark. Information was a dangerous game, and entirely in the control of the government. What the government did remained one of life’s thrilling mysteries, and you were glad not to know. They had their hands full enough as it was with Orian spies and sympathetic terrorists everywhere; even the smallest child knew that. And if you didn’t care too much about the truth, Vaikyur had to admit that the comforts of civilian life had their attractions.
Those who began to suspect that the military purges were unjustified had no way of proving it. And no way of saving themselves from the same fate if they dared to vocalize their doubts. The public had no choice but to swallow lies. Adhering to this diet for more than a century had left it unable to distinguish fact from fiction on the few occasions when real news—the truth—was actually reported. Thus, undaunted, the propaganda machine of the Ezáitur ministry so like its many predecessors was left to brainwash the young into servitude, defending a false honor and ensuring that the fight against the faceless Orian enemy would never die.
Vaikyur suddenly came to attention. All he had to break the codes was his memory, and memory cleansing operations had damaged enough of that to make his search all the more difficult. But, against all the odds, he had finally broken one of the codes so complex that no computer sequence could break it on its own. A miracle, no less.
Vaikyur sighed as though he were a condemned man that had just been pardoned. He was in the ancient archival system.
Fer-innyera Alton’s archives. Vaikyur had been one of his aides.
After so many years, he remembered doctoring the information. Alton had taken credit for random but lucky victories over the Orians, and even over natural disasters that befell them. He was a master of propaganda, and had the Tiasennian people eating out of his hand for much of the time he held office. Whether or not they actually respected him was less certain. The public had no lasting opinions.
Vaikyur had performed his duty, but he was a purist. He hated lying for a living. As a youth, he had been foolish enough to copy some of the unedited pictures and videoscans on his own, and had run them into the computer archives. An expert at utilizing the computer systems, he had implanted access codes on top of his own personal retina scan. At the time he had not yet realized how dangerous his action might have been, or how brutal the punishment would have been had he ever been caught. Nor had he ever suspected how valuable the information might one day become.
Important to the very survival of their race.
Truth. It was such an arbitrary word in the world. The authenticity of his documents he could personally verify, but they would never hold up as evidence. False information was the norm, every day. Nothing that reached the public was real. But Vaikyur wasn’t planning to distribute the information or dispute “fact”. He had a nobler intention: to preserve the fate of humankind.
Who and how could it be done? He didn’t know yet. Only that the presence of a new Orian threat in point aico-seven was the first sign of an impending disaster. A disaster that had to be averted. And the only way to do that was to figure out what was really going on. That required more than just a refresher course in Orian operations. It required information and figures, and a mind keen enough to discern from the two sets of data what could possibly have been happening on Orian in the intervening years.
Fer-innyera Alton’s policies and legacy were nothing but a faint memory. Vaikyur didn’t know how he was going to ensure the ongoing security of the information once he accessed it. More than fifty long years had passed since he had accessed the archives of Alton’s system.
He had hidden the truth and kept it hidden. Since that time, he had continued his dangerous objective, and cataloged every major Orian assault and data regarding their activities. At first, his access to undoctore
d information had been but little. In time, he had climbed the military hierarchy to head of the Tiasennian Army, and his power was now beyond question.
There were no security leaks in his private quarters, and if there were, he had means of quelling rumors against his own actions.
If Ezáitur had any real inkling of Vaikyur’s misconduct, he was smart enough to let the man get away with it. When Ezáitur took over from Alton’s regime, the new Fer-innyera had quickly realized that he could not rely upon the “history” he had been given.
The potential danger of the situation was clear. The Orians were an unknown threat, and capable of sabotaging his absolute authority at a moment’s notice. Their attacks grew more aggressive for unknown reasons from time to time. Vaikyure suspected they were drawing a red herring over Tiasenne, in hopes of disguising their true intentions and main target—this remained as yet unknown. Ezáitur was desperate to weed out the facts before a time came when he could no longer hide the lies or hide behind them. It might not have been necessary for him to know what was really happening, but it was his nature to want to know. A clever man, egotistical and often tyrannical, he could not bear to be kept in the dark.
Ezáitur played a game with Vaikyur. It had begun long ago with Ezáitur’s investigation of Alton’s secret messengers. Among the old line officers, they alone seemed to survive the purges—to a man. Ezáitur felt he needed them at arm’s length, but near enough. Yet they were watched night and day. Vaikyur was smart and knew how to play the game. For years, he feigned absolute loyalty to Ezáitur and tried to keep the new leader apprised of everything he might possibly need to know, sensing the Fer-innyera’s need to wield an absolute, omniscient authority.
Ezáitur knew about Vaikyur’s close relationship to Fer-innyera Alton as a subordinate aide. Vaikyur feigned absolute obedience to the new leader, and in part succeeded in convincing Ezáitur of his unquestioned loyalty because Ezáitur needed to feel as though the transition of power had been a smooth, peaceful one. Ezáitur’s propaganda machine was engaged in making it appear as much. In time, Ezáitur came to regard Vaikyur as a loyal subordinate and saw his own rise to power as justified, as though he had been Alton’s appointed heir of a sort, if in a strange way through the approval of Vaikyur and the knowledge that Vaikyur afforded him of Alton’s ministry.
Their relationship was a strange one. Vaikyur was older than Ezáitur, and had for so long played subordinate that when Ezáitur elevated him to his position as Senkaya-Sukura, the Operational Commander of the Tiasennian Army, he was surprised to discover that Vaikyur was ambitious after all.
Yet, Vaikyur kept an outward show of unquestioned loyalty. Year after year, as his own name became synonymous with victories and greatness, he shared the glory humbly with his leader, yet his brilliance shone clear the longer he held his position. In time, Vaikyur had the absolute loyalty of the army itself, of every man under his personal command. Vaikyur protected them, honored them, gave them more than words of glory to cherish and uphold, even through the worst of times, even when they discovered what conspiracy of lies their world was founded on. Vaikyur knew how to measure and manage his people. He could be brutal if necessary, but seldom had to be. And that was part of the hallmark of his legacy.
Ezáitur was privately regretting his leniency in the early years, and half reveled in the prospect at beating Vaikyur at the game they played. He even came to enjoy harassing him. But the truth was that Ezáitur had begun to realize in the last ten years how invaluable the man was. If Vaikyur survived, it was because they were both getting old, and Ezáitur had no intentions of being involved in a test of loyalty. The Army loved Vaikyur. Ezáitur had the people eating out of his hand, as long as Vaikyur kept the Army backing up his lies.
Ezáitur still played the interrogation game, calling Vaikyur in for questioning every so often. Vaikyur never gave away any real information, even when they had tried medication on him—and that never happened again, Vaikyur made certain of it. Vaikyur had once heard March whining about Vaikyur’s endurance under pressure. March was fed up with trying to investigate him and was eager to send his “boys” to deal with him. No one ever saw “March’s boys”, but they were the ones who took “dissidents” and transformed them into the groveling repentants or mindless shells who damned themselves at trial. March was an evil man who enjoyed cruelty and had grown rather giddy with the power of his position.
When nothing at all came out of the last interview with Vaikyur, Ezáitur had felt it necessary to have research made into the old techniques of interrogation evasion. Alton’s spies were masters at it. Ezáitur still hadn’t been able to figure out what methods had been used to train them to keep silence throughout heavy questioning. Alton had destroyed the files detailing complicated military research in this area the minute he sensed that his authority was compromised. Ezáitur himself preferred the unquestionable silence of “suicide” as a means of containing information rather than to trust of any mind tricks or mind-controlling nano-chip implants.
Vaikyur knew he had a nano-implant in his brain, but he also knew how to use it, and how to keep anyone else from using it against him. He knew that they had learned how to make men visibly “disappear” short-term, something the Fer-innyera suspected, but had no proof of. He also suspected that with the latest show of strength from the Orians, it was only a matter of time before he was going to be questioned, politely, about his observations and speculations on the matter. The thought that the Orians had not been idle, that they had been developing secret weapons in these years of relative dormancy, was alarming.
So alarming that Vaikyur’s personal security would never again be an issue. To dispose of his Operational Commanding Officer with the threat of a war imminent would be the last sane action of any leader. Vaikyur relied upon the fact that Ezáitur was essentially a coward and bully, and had a great fear of dying. Moreover, that he had an idea that one day the future would look upon his reign as a golden age in Tiasennian history, and a consuming desire to be the one perceived as the protector of Tiasenne, however his actions might actually put the planet in peril. He was not entirely dealing in the same reality as the people were, brilliant as he was, or striving for the same vision of an ideal future. But Vaikyur believed that he knew how to handle him.
The Fer-innyera held the Orians’ tactics and their race in general in contempt. For years it had seemed that the unknown potential of the Orian danger wouldn’t threaten Tiasenne in his lifetime. In the meanwhile, Ezáitur had grown complacent. Now that Erlenkov’s fighter had been shot down, it seemed certain that something was about to happen. The Fer-innyera was certain to be thinking about how these events might affect them.
Vaikyur sifted through files, silent as a predator intent upon its prey. He had a devil of a time locating anything about point aico-seven. And then, success! An image sprang to life on the screen. It was faint, and the figure had been distorted. The face was barely visible. The data that corresponded flowed across the right panel of the screen.
Vaikyur allowed his memory to replay images of the past. No longer fearing that the memories would be recorded by the computer sensor; perhaps he could isolate and destroy the fragmented images later.
He felt mixed emotions. Fear, wonder, hope, and uncertainty such as he had not felt since the days of his youth—not for his own personal safety, but for the beautiful ideals of his youth, and the mysteries of a communal past. He winced with the memory. How, as a youth, he had climbed The Ghosts’ Cliff. And the discoveries he had made had more than opened his eyes, they had lifted his gaze to the cosmos.
The events of Ezáitur’s take-over and all of the intervening years had forced him to suppress such thoughts, such delirious wonder. These sudden memories of his youth as he sat in his chair, the Senkaya-Sukura of the entire Tiasennian forces, brought him to a halt, and his eyes filled with tears.
The moment of emotion passed. But the images stirred his deep memory. And he sat long in the silence.
First study to conceal what you are. Seek wisdom a little while by yourself. Thus grows the fruit; the seed must be buried in the earth for a little space. There it must be hid, and slowly grow.
—Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
Chapter Three