IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume I: Welcome to The Charadoc!
Chapter 47 The Policy of Til
"Stop.
Stop. Stop." Justín jerked straight up in his seat, back
up from the cushions that supported him in trance. He slapped off the music, letting in the
cries of seagulls as he pulled the psychometric band away. "Okay, it's stopped," he said. He dipped a handkerchief into his water-glass
and swabbed at his face, struggling to wake up the rest of the way. "So what's up, Hon?" Deirdre clenched the arms of her chair. "I don't know how it happened." "It?
Happened?" "Joining the rebels. I didn't know it till now, but I'd already
joined before we even reached the base, before I'd heard a single word of their
ideology." She looked at him as if
a sharp enough stare could rip the answer out of him, like she could read it in
his entrails or something. "Would
you call it Stockholm syndrome? Did
Cyran and Alysha brainwash me?" He folded his hands thoughtfully as he
considered the question. "I can
certainly see some element of that.
Having to depend on your captor's goodwill for..." Then he saw Deirdre's stricken face. "That's it? I killed people, did t-terrible things,
overthrew an entire government for a
mere syndrome?" Justín leaned over to her. "No, Deirdre," he said gently. He wanted so badly to hold her hand, but
after their psychometric linkage it would sear him so hideously that not even
an overdose could protect him--and she had to bear all that alone? "Stockholm syndrome's only part of the
answer. Think. What did you see as you traveled the
countryside? What did you absorb from
the children's minds?" "Hor...horrible injustice." Her eyes watered. "But did e want me to see that?" "Of course e did. As much as Jonathan wanted you not to. You had the free will to choose between the
viewpoints of two would-be brainwashers.
And wanting you to see something didn't make it untrue, not on either side. And so you chose." She swallowed and smoothed the hair out of
her eyes. "I chose," she said
throatily. "And people died." "Before you got there people died. Starvation.
Execution. The knock at night
from the secret police." "The Purple Mantles," she
said. "But they were no
secret." He sipped water, then refilled Deirdre's
glass. "Did any of Soskia's friends
know how they kept the peace? Did they
want to know?" Deirdre shook her head slowly. "Secrets can lie right out in the open
and wear bright colors." Her eyes narrowed as she sipped her own
water. "Til's official policy backs
me up--now. Doesn't it?" He nodded. “Even my condoning of child soldiers?” “Cultures vary quite a lot as to how and when
one attains majority.” Deirdre stared at him, aghast, and gave a
short, almost whispered laugh. Faintly
she said, “I remember when I used to believe that.” Then, more sharply, she asked, "Would you give me this reassuring
speech if I had failed, if the old regime remained?" He smiled despite himself. "I'd probably reassure you that you
couldn't help getting brainwashed under the circumstances." Her hands twisted in her lap as she stared
into them. "It felt so real. I mean it was,
but…everything in the Charadoc, before the revolutionaries...I liked it, but it
scared me. I…I wanted to agree with
Jonathan, to make him happy. And yet…I
sensed insubstantiality, pretty curtains hiding horrors. Cyran whipped the curtains all away." Justín sighed. He'd seen this time and time again. No one ever told young agents everything,
like how two may both serve Lovequest, and believe one thing, and yet oppose
each other. It didn't matter if they
loved each other, too. "You're right. It was
real." He reached again for the
band, trailing wires like his personal thorns.
"Your dyslectic telepathy added everything that they didn't want
you to see to everything you saw, no matter who did the
brainwashing." The band sank onto
his forehead and he tightened it there. Both
right, and both wrong, he decided, but no need to tell her that. Debriefers learned to live with paradox. "Policy aside, Deirdre, I think you made
the right choice." She looked darkly on him. “You don’t yet know all my choices.” He shrugged.
His hand hovered over the music switch.
"Shall we resume?" * * * In the room next door the transcriber typed
in the last page, and then stopped. She
lifted the book off the holder and into her own hands, to read the final lines: Done. No more
to it. She won't come back with me. Rebel.
The old order decays. She doesn't
need me anymore--and neither do I. Cyran's all right.
She left me with enough of the deep brown potion to die with. At least I can finish something I started. But first I shall seal up this diary. I shall hand it to the first illiterate
peasant I come across, tell him its value, that Til Institute will pay a heavy
ransom for its safe return, no questions asked.
Only then will I open the bottles, one by one, to see which of us can
finish the other first. Gently the transcriber laid the fragile old
book down on her desk. Job done, and she
could expect good pay for what no one else could do. She ran a finger along the cracked leather
binding and made herself touch the red-black streak along the sides of the
pages--did that come from the battle of Giant's Clap, or did he just cut
himself shaving? She thanked God once
again that she had no psychometric gift and couldn't read a thing in that dark
stain. She got up and put everything where it
belonged, then shouldered on a sweater and her purse. Tonight would definitely be a single-malt
night--she sure could use a good strong belt of...no. Maybe not.
Not that kind of night at all. |
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