“Fair enough,” Malcolm said at last. “Then—what I’m saying is—we Immortals have the impression that, without ethea, Bereft don’t really have a purpose. They’re sort of adrift.”
“Far from it!” Sylvia exclaimed. “We have so much purpose. It’s just—we allow our purpose to change and grow and adapt. We might have more than one purpose at the same time. It’s not exactly ethos, but it’s certainly purpose.”
Malcolm nodded, gazing down into his empty plate. He was beginning to feel a profound sense of shame.
Walt had clearly sensed this. He put a hand lightly on Malcolm’s shoulder and squeezed. “We’re happy you’re here, youngster,” he said. “Hope you’ll stay a spell.”
Malcolm remained in the Settlement for ten days. He helped Earl forge a new hunting knife in his metalwork shop. Then he spent an afternoon with Sylvia, listening to her teach a group of twenty of the Settlement’s youngest residents about the science involved in the Great Genetic War. He went hunting with Walt and Gus and managed, with the help of a very fine crossbow built by Gus, to bag a boar, which he then roasted over a spit with the help of Hildegard. The whole Settlement gathered that evening to enjoy a portion of the boar and to hear a fairytale told by Irma, the storyteller. When she finished, Walt played the banjo—which he had crafted himself and strung with steel strings made by Earl—and the whole Settlement danced. Malcolm laughed and stumbled as Sylvia showed him the strange but wonderful rhythmic steps the villagers had invented.
Late in the evening on the tenth day that Malcolm spent in the Settlement, he was sitting alone by the fire in the Meeting House, where Hildegard had set up a cot for him. Absentmindedly, he flexed the fingers of his right hand, and noticed a feeling of warmth and strength pulsing in his veins.
He hadn’t noticed it, as it had happened so gradually, but something was shifting inside him. His strength was beginning to return.
On a whim, almost abashedly, Malcolm reached under the cot and pulled out his curved knife. Before he could second-guess himself, he pressed the blade’s sharp edge into the skin on the back of his hand. He drew a clean, three-inch slice into the flesh.
He watched as, in the firelight, blood bubbled to the surface of the wound. He blinked and stared. The firelight flicked and danced over the smooth brown of his skin. And then, the wound began to close, imperceptibly at first, and then, very rapidly. Three seconds passed and the blood had vanished. A second later, and the gash was no more than a white scratch over the surface of his hand. And then, it was gone. The back of Malcolm’s hand was healed completely clean. No evidence remained of the cut.
Malcolm felt a rush of joy and exhilaration. His ethos had reestablished itself.
And then, just as quickly, his heart sank. He knew what this meant. It was time to say goodbye to the Settlement.
all a meeting of the Flint Immortal Council immediately,” Malcolm said to Councilor Floyd the moment he pulled the glider into its spot in the parking deck below City Hall. “Make sure there is press. And, in fact, open City Hall to spectators. We start in an hour.”
“Chancellor Malcolm,” Councilor Floyd interjected, “there’s something you should know before—”
“What?” Malcolm called over his shoulder. He was rushing toward his suite of rooms in the western wing of City Hall. The villagers of the Settlement had given him clothing to replace his business suit over the course of his ten-day stay with them, but now he would need to change back to his politician’s attire before he appeared with the Immortal Councilors. He had already dictated notes for his remarks while driving the glider back to Flint. All he had to do was wash, shave, and change, and he would be ready to publicly take the Council to task for its bigotry—and reclaim his ethos.
Councilor Floyd rushed along behind Malcolm.
“It’s just that—well, Chancellor, there’s been a major change. We tried to alert you via radiacomm a few days ago, but it appears that you disabled it.”
Malcolm glanced distractedly at his wrist. He had, indeed, set his radiacomm to reject all incoming calls shortly after he arrived in the Settlement. Now, for the first time in days, he remembered this fact. With a quick flick of the fingers of his left hand to the inside of his right wrist, he put the radiacomm back online.
“What’s the change, Councilor?” Malcolm asked hurriedly. He needed to get organized in time for the assembly of the Council, and he was in no mood for Councilor Floyd’s typical obfuscating and exaggerated deference.
“I assure you that this resolution has passed with the full two-thirds majority of the Council and has been ratified enthusiastically by Interim Chancellor David,” Councilor Floyd said, still stalling.
Malcolm stopped walking, decidedly irritated now. He faced Councilor Floyd head on. “What is it, Floyd?” he asked, permitting himself to drop Councilor Floyd’s title to let him know he was far too busy for this ridiculous formality.
Councilor Floyd visibly blanched. Then he took a deep breath. “There is no longer a Flint Immortal Council.”
Malcolm felt as if all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the long corridor they were standing in. What? Had there been a coup? He struggled to find words, but Councilor Floyd pressed on.
“With the government of Detroit in shambles after our victory, the Flint Immortal Council voted to officially dissolve the Detroit Immortal Council and to unify both cities under one government. The vote was unanimous. Interim Chancellor David backed the measure, and successfully enlisted the support of former Chancellor Kinnion, who recognized the need for unification to create lasting peace in the wake of the Conflict.”
Malcolm remained quite still, unsure what to say. He felt as if his mind were tripping through molasses, several steps behind what Councilor Floyd was saying.
“The Constitution of Flint now applies to Detroit, Flint, and all surrounding Immortal outposts,” Councilor Floyd explained, “and two amendments have been ratified. The new combined city-state of Flint and Detroit is now called simply Ethos, as it is the de facto capital city of the Ethosian world. And the Immortal Council now includes an equal share of representatives from both the former Flint and the former Detroit.”
Malcolm felt his jaw working soundlessly.
Then, suddenly, he threw back his head and whooped. He seized Councilor Floyd by the shoulders and pulled him into a tight bear hug. “Councilor Floyd! This is brilliant! I want you to relay my congratulations and thanks immediately to both Interim Chancellor David and former Chancellor Kinnion. This is wonderful news for the Ethosian people and for unity and peace.”
Councilor Floyd, whose face was still pressed into Malcolm’s shoulder, relaxed palpably.
“I should add,” he said, his voice somewhat muffled by Malcolm’s embrace, “that the new Council has voted to retain you as Chancellor of Ethos City until the end of your original term limit as Chancellor of Flint. Former Chancellor Kinnion agreed to step aside and pose no challenge to your authority, although he was quickly elected Councilor representing the thirty-second district, located in the former Detroit, without a challenger.”
Malcolm nodded, surprised to realize that he had not even considered this detail. He was so happy to hear of the unification that he would have accepted a new chancellor if the Immortal Council had willed it. Nevertheless, he was relieved to hear that he could continue to lead for the time being. His next step was too important for delay—and he was likely the only Immortal who could make it happen.
A little under an hour later, Malcolm was standing on the dais at the head of City Hall, dressed in a floor length black robe. To his right stood David, and to his left stood the former Chancellor and now Councilor Kinnion.
On either side of the hall, the Immortal Council’s tiered galleries had doubled in size. When the Council was comprised only of Flint representatives, there were fifty councilors; now, including the new Detroit representatives, there were one hundred of them. They were all arrayed in the signature short, charcoal jackets of the
Council, and all turned their expectant, youthful faces toward the dais where Chancellor Malcolm stood prepared to address them for the first time as a unified legislature.
The spectators’ gallery was equally overflowing with Ethosians. Every last seat had been taken, and scores more civilians stood in every possible cranny at the back of the hall, craning their necks to see over the sea of heads to the dais.
But one detail differentiated this crowd from the gathering that had attended the trials of the so-called Warped Immortals. Today, Bereft and Immortals alike were seated side-by-side in the gallery. During the trials, and in fact, during any public assembly in City Hall, the spectators’ gallery was usually segregated, with a small section reserved for Bereft at the back of the hall. But for this assembly, Malcolm had explicitly forbidden the dividing of the spectators’ gallery. As Ethos City residents began to pour into the hall upon hearing that Chancellor Malcolm had summoned a legislative session, they were stunned to find no designated seating for Bereft or Immortals.
First, there was general confusion as people tried out of habit to locate the correct seating area. And then, little by little, Immortal citizens found themselves seated beside Bereft, until the spectators’ gallery was a mélange of people of all ages, commingling in a way that Ethos had not seen in centuries.
Malcolm stepped forward to a vibramp, a microphone-like device affixed to a stand on the dais. This device was designed to amplify his voice by enhancing the frequency of the sound waves created by his vocal folds. This meant that the vibrations of his voice traveled further and more efficiently through the air to his audience, and there was no need for digital amplification of his voice.
As he approached the vibramp, Malcolm held up both hands to signal for silence to the stirring crowd.
“Fellow Ethosians,” he began, his voice reaching every ear in the hall as easily as if in private conversation. “I am grateful to be back among you this afternoon. I want to express my gratitude to the councilors who served on the former Flint Immortal Council and to Interim Chancellor David for your commitment and loyalty to Ethos. Your leadership in creating the present unified city-state will be forever remembered.”
This was met with a wave of applause that began somewhere toward the back of the hall and surged forward through the ranks of civilians and councilors alike.
“Effective immediately,” Malcolm continued, “I hereby resume the chancellorship of Ethos, and I thank Interim Chancellor David for his service to the republic in my absence.”
Malcolm turned and extended a hand to David, who clasped it warmly. Throughout Malcolm’s opening remarks, David had been scanning the faces in the crowd before him, searching for Nev. Unfortunately, the spectators’ gallery was too densely packed, and there was a row of footlights below the dais illuminating the speakers’ faces for the crowd. David had to squint against their glare, and he could not make out any individual faces more than three rows back in the spectators’ gallery.
He hoped against hope that Nev was there. He had not seen her since the day of Malcolm’s rapid departure, when she had told him that she loved him. But he had replayed that all-too-brief conversation in his mind a thousand times since then. How could he have allowed himself to let her go? He had sensed that, in order to fulfill his ethos of loving and supporting Malcolm, he had to accept the interim chancellorship, and all that went with it—including conforming to the official Immortal position on the Bereft. But fulfilling this part of his ethos put him in direct violation of the second half of his ethos: loving and supporting Nev.
Almost immediately, David had begun to notice himself weakening. He dared not submit himself to an immortality test, for fear that his worst suspicions would be confirmed. As long as he had no definitive proof one way or the other about whether he was in violation of his ethos, he could hope that fulfilling his commitment to Malcolm canceled out the violation of his commitment to Nev.
Of course, this didn’t mean that he didn’t regret with every fiber of his being what had last transpired between him and Nev. The way her face had fallen when she understood that he was rejecting her on the grounds of her Bereft status was unbearable. Every time he paused in his busy days of work as interim chancellor, he saw that look of bewilderment and pain in her eyes. He felt as if he couldn’t stomach his own company for having caused such pain. And yet, if he hadn’t, Flint and Detroit would not have unified into the single city of Ethos.
So David stood on the dais, at war with himself and the decisions he’d made. He squinted against the blue glare of the footlights, scanning and scanning the crowd for Nev.
Meanwhile, Malcolm turned back to the vibramp and continued.
“Words cannot express my joy in returning to my home of Flint to find it forever changed. The unification of the cities of Flint and Detroit into the single city of Ethos marks the dawning of a new era of human history. I stand before you as the humble chancellor of a people united in peace and solidarity, the likes of which the world has never before seen in human history—and which the new amendments to the unified Ethosian Constitution promise to preserve and protect as long as human beings populate the earth.
“And yet,” Malcolm continued, his voice darkening, “I do not speak to a fully unified people. We used to think of ourselves as divided between those from Flint and those from Detroit. No longer. We now call ourselves, every last one of us, Ethosians.
“ . . . Or do we?”
He paused, looking out at the sea of faces before him, waiting for the question to sink in.
“There are some among us whom we do not count as fellow Ethosians. Whom we rank—even in our society, the most evolved the world has ever known—as second-class citizens.” There was a stirring among the gathered civilians and councilors as they began to understand the implication behind Malcolm’s words.
“Fellow Ethosians,” Malcolm said, “turn to your left or your right, and see your neighbor, the person seated beside you.”
A low rustling filled the hall as thousands of people, reluctantly, somewhat reservedly, turned to glance sidelong at those around them.
“Are these fellow citizens you would have acknowledged had you passed them on the street? Are these fellow citizens you even have occasion to see—really see—in your day to day life?”
The hall answered him with an echoing silence.
“We would call ourselves the unified city of Ethos. And yet we are still a deeply divided people. Mistrustful. Prejudiced. Cynical. Discriminating. Those whom we dub ‘Bereft’ live literally segregated in designated areas of the city. They cannot work alongside Immortals; their children cannot attend Immortal schools; they are turned away from Immortal hospitals. And we justify this discrimination with the belief that the Bereft are genetically inferior to Immortals. That they do not share the sense of purpose, the ambition, the commitment of Immortals. We Immortals believe that because we share one curious genetic anomaly—the fact of being guided by an ethos—we are somehow morally superior to the Bereft.”
The hall remained silent. Malcolm could not tell whether this meant the Immortals gathered before him were tacitly agreeing with his summary or were beginning to hear its hypocrisy. He could only press on.
“I myself have claimed to live by the ethos of fighting for righteousness. I led you into what I thought was righteous battle—and an Immortal High Court in this very chamber found my certitude to be misguided and cast my ethos into suspicion. I have since learned that my error ran even deeper than prejudice against those we used to term the ‘Warped Immortals.’ I am here to publicly declare, before all of you Ethosians, Bereft and Immortals alike, that I have been mistaken in my estimation of the Bereft. None of the charges I have just raised against them are true. I stand for righteousness, and I am prepared to fight with my life to defend what is right in the world, for all its people. My ethos demands of me that I take this stand—and my ethos is stronger today than ever. And so I stand before you to declare that righteousness demands equ
al treatment of the Bereft.”
Now, finally, a stirring did pass through the crowd. And yet, Malcolm’s clever ploy of mixing the Bereft and the Immortals in the spectators’ gallery kept the unease from escalating. The Immortals who wanted to decry what Malcolm was saying turned to their neighbors in search of solidarity and found themselves gazing into the eyes of the Bereft. Without strength of numbers, their resentment and fury could not grow and spread. It was dead in the water.
Malcolm continued. “I have spent the last ten days in the company of a group of Bereft living a non-genetic life in the far northern lands beyond the Immortal outposts. And I have found them to be industrious, generous, committed, intelligent. Different from Immortals? Yes. Inferior? No.
“Before all the Ethosians gathered here today, I declare that we cannot be strong until we are unified. We cannot call ourselves an evolved society until we fully embrace the values of egalitarianism and freedom. We are not truly Ethosians until we are all truly free.”
The hall grew very still and quiet. Malcolm’s heart was in his throat. In making this public declaration, before thousands of assembled Immortals, he was very possibly putting himself at risk of impeachment—or worse. There was nothing to stop the Immortals from revolting violently. They, in their vast numbers, could easily rush the dais and overpower him.
He waited, training his eyes steadily on the crowd, his face impassive.
Then a voice rose from the back of the hall.
A woman had pushed through the standing-room section at the back of the spectators’ gallery and was calling over the crowd. At first, Malcolm could not quite make out her features from such a distance. But then, he noticed the streak of silver running through her braided hair.
It was Nev.
She raised a fist in the air and shouted, “Hear, hear!”
For a moment, her voice echoed in the stillness. And then, from the far left side of the hall, another Bereft man stood and joined her cry. “Hear, hear!”
Ethos Page 19