Ethos

by Aaron Dworkin

  Her friend put up a hand to quiet her. “Poor Chancellor Malcolm,” she breathed. “His heart is breaking.”

  “He is the most honorable Immortal among us,” her friend replied, indicating Malcolm with a nod of her head. Then, her gaze slid to the place among the Immortal Councilors where the Committee members were seated, her eyes filled with judgment and accusation.

  Malcolm took in a large, shaking breath, and continued. “My friends, we can never know what more David might have accomplished on our behalf had he been permitted to continue his work. What I wonder about most is this: I was born long before David found his ethos and earned immortality. When I was born, David ranked among the Bereft, and none could guess that he would go on to develop such purpose, such meaning in his life. If such a man as David counted himself Bereft, and was nevertheless able to raise a son who grew up not only to develop immortality, but to become your humble Chancellor and servant, devoted forever to championing your cause . . . how can we be sure that the Bereft bloodline is tainted? How can we even make the claim that it does not share the same qualities that make the Immortals strong and steadfast and just and pure?”

  Malcolm allowed the silence that followed his question to land heavily on the spectators. He waited for several heartbeats for them to formulate their own answer.

  Then he continued. “Fellow Ethosians, I am not here to encourage discord. I do not question the actions of the Committee, which they no doubt undertook in faithful service to you. If my aim were to turn you against them, I would be wronging Councilor Kinnion, whose sacrifices for Ethos have been unparalleled. I would be wronging Councilor Kashay, whom we have all seen battle valiantly in defense of the republic. These Councilors are honorable. They are just. I will not undermine them. I would sooner wrong myself and David and all of you than bring a false charge against the Committee.

  “But I stand before you in certitude now that my father was no less devoted, no less brave, no less a man before he found his ethos than after. And if this was true of David, how can we claim he sought to undermine Immortality? How can we claim that he posed a threat to the bloodline or to Ethos? Is it even possible, with proof of David’s worth as both a Bereft man and an Immortal, for us to be sure that the Bereft as a group pose any threat? Can we be certain they don’t hold an equal capacity to contribute to and bolster our civilization?”

  Again, Malcolm paused as his questions hung poignantly in the silence that gripped the hall.

  “I join you today,” Malcolm said at last, “in mourning for lost potential. For all the things that David might have accomplished over the course of an Immortal lifespan that we will now never see. And, the greater loss still, for all the contributions the Bereft might make and do make that we ignore and undermine out of fear and ignorance. I join you now in grieving for what might have been, were we but able to release ourselves from our own willful blindness.”

  There was a moment of suspension in City Hall, as if all those assembled had taken in a breath at once and were now clinging to it, their hearts paused in their chests. And then, as if moved by the same impulse, as if one body, they rose to their feet and broke into a sustained wave of solemn but fervent applause.

  Malcolm woke shortly after midnight to a light tapping on his bedroom door.

  “Chancellor Malcolm?” A low voice called. Malcolm recognized it immediately as Councilor Floyd’s. He rose on one elbow and peered into the darkness toward the door. He already suspected what Councilor Floyd was there to tell him.

  “Enter,” he called through the door.

  Councilor Floyd opened the sliding door with a press of his fingerprint to a sensor on the wall. He stepped softly into the darkened room.

  “Chancellor Malcolm,” he said quietly, “Councilor Kinnion has been murdered.”

  Malcolm sat up slowly, swinging his legs out of bed and allowing his bare feet to rest on the cool hardwood floor. He sat very still for a moment, his forearms resting on his thighs.

  Finally, he looked up and met Councilor Floyd’s eyes. He could not be sure, but he felt that a silent understanding had passed between them.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “The citizens are still in the streets,” Councilor Floyd said. “The protest has been uninterrupted since the funeral. With so many people in the streets, policing is drastically hampered. We’ll need more time to conduct a thorough investigation to understand exactly what occurred. But it looks as though Councilor Kinnion’s security detail was overpowered by a contingent of citizens. He was killed in his home.”

  Malcolm nodded. This was exactly what he had expected. Exactly what he had carefully orchestrated.

  Then he asked, “And the other members of the Committee? What can be done for their security?”

  Councilor Floyd locked eyes with Malcolm. The two of them looked at each other, the air heavy with what they both knew and wanted but would not venture to make explicit. At last, Councilor Floyd said, “There’s not much that can be done. Not when the citizenry is up in arms en masse.”

  Malcolm held Councilor Floyd’s gaze. “The people are the ultimate rulers,” he said finally.

  Councilor Floyd nodded curtly. “So they are,” he agreed. He left the room quietly. The sliding door clicked closed behind him, leaving Malcolm to lower himself back into his bed and fall gently asleep.

  The riots lasted for five days. On the first night, Councilor Kinnion was killed. Two other councilors followed the next night, then five on the third. Councilor Kashay and two more were killed on the fourth night. The final member of the Security and Intelligence Committee of the Immortal Council was found hiding in a disabled glider in the open land between the former cities of Flint and Detroit at high noon on the fifth day. He was hanged in broad daylight by a band of both Immortal and Bereft citizens of Ethos.

  In the aftermath of the riots, Malcolm called an emergency session of the Immortal Council. It voted unanimously to condemn the conviction without due process of Commander David. The Committee members were found posthumously guilty of David’s murder by genetic stasis. It was further agreed that an investigation to uncover those responsible for the vigilante killings of the members of the Committee would be virtually impossible. The citizens of Ethos had acted as one, and identifying the individuals among them responsible for the deaths would be like searching for needles in a haystack.

  This was the official stance of the Immortal Council, supported by the Ethosian Army and the Chief of the Ethosian Police. The implicit stance was that the citizenry had committed no crime. They had carried out just retribution. The cycle of violence had closed, and no further action was necessary.

  Malcolm took advantage of the tide of pro-Bereft and pro-desegregation sentiments his eulogy to David had stirred in the Ethosian people. In the months that followed the slaughter of the separatist leaders of the Security and Intelligence Committee, which came to be known as the Immortal Council Purge, Malcolm consolidated his influence, cementing his civil rights policies.

  He lobbied the Immortal Council, which now included a large proportion of Bereft representatives, to officially ratify the civil rights decrees he had issued. With not only the backing of the chancellorship, but now the official seal of the Immortal Council, the decrees became incontestable law. There was no longer any risk of repeal.

  But Malcolm did not stop there. He urged the Immortal Council to legalize intergenetic marriage, and to name the new law the Commander David Act. He secured the support of a coalition of top genetic and immortality researchers, who testified that intergenetic offspring posed no threat to the Immortal bloodline.

  And he offered his own half-brother as proof.

  Nev had indeed managed to reach Malcolm in City Hall on the night of David’s capture. Malcolm had provided her with an official Immortal Council glider, which she could drive out of the city without risk of being stopped at the city wall or at any of the Immortal outposts along her route. She had driven all the way to the Settlement, a
nd there, six months later, she had given birth to a perfectly healthy baby boy.

  His name was David.

  Malcolm had learned of Nev’s safe arrival in the Settlement when she contacted him via radiacomm only a few hours after his father’s death. He had had to tell her the terrible news remotely. Always the stalwart commander, Nev had received the news with superhuman grace.

  “Genetic stasis?” she had whispered.

  “I didn’t know it existed until now, either,” Malcolm began to explain. “It’s a process of freezing the genetic activity—”

  “Oh, I know what it is,” Nev replied. “Immortal Councilors have used it covertly against the Bereft for decades. It’s a way of circumventing the Ethosian ban on the death penalty—since it is not biologically ‘death’ but ‘stasis.’ I had heard rumors for years that there was a secret Security and Intelligence Committee within the Immortal Council and that it was using genetic stasis against captured Bereft Rebel commanders. I never had solid evidence that the fabled DNA Lock actually existed, but sometimes a Rebel commander would disappear and never return.”

  Malcolm was silent, listening to Nev’s strained voice on the other end of his radiacomm.

  “And now they’ve used it on my husband,” she said.

  The two of them remained quiet for a long time. There was nothing more to be said. They both understood that David was irretrievably lost, and the work of securing justice now rested on Malcolm’s shoulders. Returning to Ethos City with the Committee still at large would be far too dangerous for Nev, who was, as far as the Committee was concerned, guilty of the same egregious crime as David.

  Malcolm had promised Nev that he would do everything in his power to avenge David’s unjust, illegal execution—and not only that, he would make Ethos safe for the Bereft again. Not just for her sake, but for the sake of the child she now carried.

  And Malcolm had made good on his promise.

  Six months after her husband’s death, Nev returned to the city as a celebrated hero with her son and Malcolm’s brother, David.

  Bereft and Immortals alike gathered in City Hall to welcome Commander Nev, who entered flanked by Walt, Hildegard, and Sylvia, with the sleeping newborn David bundled in her arms.

  As she arrived, the assembled crowd of Ethosians burst into applause.

  Nev joined Malcolm, who wore his ceremonial chancellor’s black suit and a warm, joyful smile, on the dais at the head of the hall.

  Malcolm stepped to the vibramp, extending his arms outward to quiet the crowd.

  “Fellow Ethosians,” he said, his voice steady and sure, “Six months ago, I stood here in shock and grief, and I asked you to see what had heretofore seemed impossible: that the Bereft bear us no ill will. That their existence is no threat to ours. Far from it: our fates are mutually intertwined, inextricably bound. We rely on each other to thrive.

  “Today, I wish to introduce you to the living example of this unity. This child is the result of a Bereft-Immortal union, the son of Commanders Nev and David. And he is my brother. He was born healthy, robust. There is no indication that his parentage has undermined his own genome—or anyone else’s.

  “He is the living example of what is possible in Ethos when we come together in peace and in love.

  “My fellow Ethosians,” Malcolm said, gently taking baby David from Nev’s arms and lifting him high for all gathered to see. “I present to you a living symbol of hope, unity, and the future of Ethos.

  “I present to you my brother, David.”

  As Malcolm held him aloft, the child’s eyes blinked open, as if in welcome to the universe, to the awaiting future.

  Named a 2005 MacArthur Fellow, and President Obama’s first appointment to the National Council on the Arts, Aaron P. Dworkin served as dean of the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance. He is the founder of The Sphinx Organization, the leading national arts organization for transforming lives through the power of diversity and the arts. Dworkin is the producer and host of AaronAsk, a weekly online mentoring show on living a creative and fulfilling life (a program of his non-profit, Serafina Arts). He is also the founder of the Dworkin Foundation where he serves as chairman of the Board. Among various other honors and awards, he is the recipient of the Kennedy Center Award for the Human Spirit, Royal Philharmonic Society Honorary Membership, Harvard University’s Vosgerchian Teaching Award, the National Governors Association 2005 Distinguished Service to State Government Award, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award, BET’s History Makers in the Making Award, AT&T Excellence in Education Award, and was named one of Newsweek’s 15 People Who Make America Great and the National Black MBA’s Entrepreneur of The Year. Additionally, the Curtis Institute of Music awarded Dworkin with an Honorary Doctorate in 2013. Dworkin recorded and produced two CDs, entitled Ebony Rhythm and Bar-Talk, in addition to writing, producing, and directing the independent film Deliberation. Dworkin founded and served as publisher and editor-in-chief of The Bard, a literary magazine. He has authored a memoir, Uncommon Rhythm: A Black, White, Jewish, Jehovah’s Witness, Irish Catholic Adoptee’s Journey to Leadership, a poetry collection, They Said I Wasn’t Really Black, and a children’s book, The 1st Adventure of Chilli Pepperz. He is married to Afa Sadykhly Dworkin, and has two sons, Noah Still and Amani Jaise.

  Contact: maverickviolin@gmail.com.