“Are you aware of your history?”
“What do you take me for? We know our own history.” Her voice did not lose its coldness, yet she avoided my eyes when answering. You already know my next question, I almost smiled.
“How the Munti were born on this planet?” We both know that we don’t really know. See? I can play the game too.
“This is my kingdom, this is my palace, and behind that door there are some guards. It is not for you to ask questions here.” Things are settled now, take one step back, give her enough space to kill the anger that boils in her.
“You know only what they want you to know. They look powerful and they are. They look friendly and they are not. Small brain, one of them named me before. This is what we are for them: small brains, no more than pets, or speaking tools.” I stopped, and she said nothing.
“You have a chance. Don’t waste it.” The seed is planted; she is now ready to listen. Think: you walk a thin line over a precipice, play your hand openly.
“Travelers enslaved our people by hypnosis and introduced a new narrative into their minds: war against Munti. We don’t want war. We had none for one thousand years. Why should we want it now? They used communication devices given to leaders to make calls in the deepest secrecy. You know these devices. One by one, people fell under the spell, driven by their own desire for domination and power. Once subdued, discretion was no longer necessary. You know the rest: many people died, many more will die. The King, the Queen and Altamira are still free. Airan and all the other council members are now under the spell. We no longer have a council. We are on the verge of being completely taken over by the Travelers’ will, be it slowly, or by a violent coup.” I briefly paused, seeing her reaction. I talked too much… Her white face changed to marble, as if bleached by fury. I hope you fear too; fury alone will not help you. “I am open with you and hope you will not exploit this, as it will give you only a marginal advantage. You are already the next in line. We have to act together, as good neighbors. Together we have a better chance.” I have played my last card with you … les jeux sont fait. I hope you will understand. Only together…
“The Baragan King did not have the same good neighborly approach when he received our traitors. Garon was a traitor. Garon will always be a traitor. Garon is your Chancellor.” You are right but that was in the past, in another life, a much easier one. Think in the present, the future is bleak.
“This is an old story, also driven by Travelers. They … contacted you,” I remembered from simulations. She said nothing. “That happened in a very different world; still I apologize, although I think you would have proceeded in the same way at that time.”
“How were you able to retain the independence to think?” She caught me again in her cold blue stare. You want to crush me with a glance, you want to dominate; I carefully avoided her eyes; if this is the price, I will pay it. I told them the whole story of the Baragans dancing like ducks under the hypnosis. “Please do not answer their future calls.”
“I will consider your advice.”
“One of your people has already responded to their calls.” What Houston had revealed to me, just before arriving, made her shiver and gave me an advantage. Yes, the game has changed, you start to realize it. You are no longer safe; the black hats plague is coming to take you over too. You fear now. I have to use this fear. I am sorry.
“And what proofs have you to support the claim that one of our people is a traitor?” But the voice behind the question was weak, it was only a political decision that it should be asked.
“Nothing other than my word.”
“Your word has a good reputation, but that can change quickly. Why did you take the risk of telling me this? If Duras or I were the one you are talking about, by tomorrow morning you’d be dead.”
“They consider us being stupid, and will not change the approach.” I hope. “A queen doesn’t go alone into the forest to meet some black hats. But, as you said, I took a great risk.” I caught her eyes; she stared for a second, then moved away. You have to believe me. If not…
“Do you know who the traitor is?” She stopped playing.
“No, I don’t, but there is no traitor. Only a person fallen under the will of an evil force, stronger than any of us. The same could have happened to me or to you.”
*
The council meeting was shorter than I had expected, and a strategy was put in place for Munti forces to keep an eye on the borders without attacking Baragan territories. The grays were totally avoided. To my surprise, the vote was unanimous; even the supposed traitor voted against the war. The Queen made me a sign to wait as the others left. “Where is your suspect, given that all are against the war?”
“The Factions play many games, sometimes they even fight. Time will tell.”
“What are these Factions?” You idiot! Keep your mouth shut. What to answer now? She made an impatient sign, waiting for my answer. Say something, better be an intelligent something. If you can...
“Travelers do not all belong to the same party.” I made an analogy to ease my explanation. ”It is like our world, where we are Baragans, you are Munti and there are also others. And like us they can have divergent opinions on the same thing.”
The next few weeks passed with almost no political discussions; it was a waiting game on all sides. I wanted to meet the Erins, but unfortunately the Queen had a different opinion on this; she transformed me from a messenger into a hostage, sitting in a golden cage, as large as the city but still a cage. They asked me to help their own librarians to solve some problems they had encountered in deciphering old Baragan manuscripts, while I hoped for the Erins to make a stealthy move in my direction.
*
Her name was Delena and she was the elder daughter of Queen Siena. I could not help but admire her from the first moment she appeared in my dreams, while still a child. I stopped asking Houston about the meaning of my first dream, whichever version of it. I slowly understood that it was better to take some things as they are. Dreams are often only a dead timeline, one never fulfilling its course. Delena was the opposite of Altamira in almost everything: her blonde hair against the red blackness of Altamira’s, her light blue eyes against the deep green. She was as tall as me, while Altamira barely reached my chin. Still I could find some things in common; the same joy in life and the fact that neither of them was to become the next ruler of their land, for different reasons, and which in Altamira’s case was a great pity. The Baragan law meant that the first-born was the legal inheritor, irrespective of gender. The Munti had a more complex rule; the heir was the eldest child of opposite gender to the ruler in place, which made Delena ineligible as they now had a queen. It was agreed that Delena and Duras would be my guides. Noblesse oblige, I was one of the Baragan Marshals, as was Duras among the Munti, and both of us were Second Marshals, a perfect match.
Munti society was similar in some aspects to a hive. They had small communities named nuclei, five to twenty families, not necessarily related, working in common, even raising children together. Usually a nucleus was specialized, like a small guild, but this did not give them exclusive rights to a specific activity, and they owned in common what they produced as well as the means of production. They did not have commercial jurisdiction outside their organization and this made them more dynamic and innovative compared to their Earth equivalents, and Munti had the fastest economic evolution. For larger projects, several nuclei would share the tasks. Women and men participated equally in labor, even in industrial fields, except for the most dangerous ones. The structure of nuclei could change dynamically with time when an innovation gave them the opportunity. Land was state property and automatically rented to any nucleus, proportional to its population and type of economic activity. As there was enough land on the planet this did not cause any issues.
Muntis were addicted to music and dance, an effect of the harsh mountain climate, keeping them inside in the long winter nights, and a pleasant way of eliminatin
g accumulated tensions. Their musical ‘arsenal’ was quite diverse: pianos, violins, harps, something similar to a guitar, pan pipes identical to the Romanian curved-style pipes, flutes, hand-stopped horns. Dances took place spontaneously in houses or in an organized fashion in the councils’ halls. Once a month a royal ball was sponsored by the Queen. This one seemed to be special; there was a strange excitement in the air. I did not think my little surprise was the cause, but who knows? It was difficult to keep things secret there, as in any other small city. Anyway, I wondered if this strange succession of events would have been possible on Earth in similar political conditions.
For several weeks, I had trained the small local orchestra to sing a waltz adaptation of the Blue Danube, calling it the Blue Donaris after the name of the great river in the east. They found the song matched their own mystical vision of the river, its color being quite blue due to the accumulation of some salts, and even started to innovate, creating variations mixed with fragments of their own music. A small waltzing club had been set up, including Delena and two of her girl friends, partnered by my young cadets. It was not a difficult task to ask youngsters to dance, but difficult to escape their demands for repetitions.
On the big night, I was wandering among the hall pillars. Such wonderful people and the black hats want to destroy them. Bastards! They ruin everything they touch: Earth, Baragans, Munti. If I had the power, I would... You have nothing. You are a pawn, pawns don’t play the main cast. Shut up! I am here, and I am not here for nothing.
“Their interests are the same.” An old discussion with Houston resurfaced inside my mind. Yeah, kill, destroy, the big brains’ pleasures.
“My Faction wants to save the Baragans, the other to destroy them.” What game are you playing with me?
“They don’t give a damn about the population there; both want to eliminate the Erins. They differ only in strategy.” The best democracies in the galaxy, what a joke. I am part of this joke... And you Houston? What are you playing?
“The Erins? Why?”
“They are afraid of Erins.”
A Stone Age tribe shaking the bones of the mighty Black Travelers. This is not just a joke. It is a bad joke. My thoughts faded away, the hall came back, it was warm and noisy, people swarming everywhere; there was nowhere to escape to, not even my own thoughts. The masters of ceremony sounded the horns and started to gather the people, bustling importantly from one group to another. Delena was smiling, and I forced my lips into a smile as well. What the hell is wrong? It is a party … I am in a funereal mood. The hum ended when the orchestra came into the hall. There was no speech, a good habit other politicians should adopt on similar occasions. A big drum jerked me out of my reverie, the horns sounded again, and the opening ceremony was finished.
The orchestra generated a small cacophony, preparing the instruments for the new thing in town. The oil lamps dimmed, and the waltz started, with everybody puzzled by the rhythm. The music was impressive but unknown and did not seem very danceable – confused dancers stopped coming onto the floor. Three pairs entered the ring while the Danube gradually started to raise its musical waves, with a strange fluency in their steps. The first beat of the music, a step forward on the heel, a gradual rise onto the toes, the second step, the third, rotation, lowering the heel to the floor, ending again in the starting position. Waltz is a conspiracy of risings and fallings and elegant rotations. The music flew, hitting the highest notes only to fall to the lowest ones, swirling and thrilling, absorbing everybody with invisible hands. There were no more walls, no columns, no one; my mind opened to its forceful beauty, and a vivid image of a nighttime ritual.
*
Long nights dancing need relaxing days afterward. To soothe and relax our muscles I came up with the idea of swimming in a small turquoise lake, set between steep cliffs. It was a trick; I just wanted to leave the city to make it easier for the Erins to contact me ... if they wanted to. In that still sleeping morning a small thought briefly resurfaced in my mind - the SAT-mines - only to be wiped away, in haste, by my new confidence. I had grown used to the habit of being absolutely naked when swimming since the first time I had gone swimming in Dava in my underpants, only to be the joke of all the others, so we got into the water quickly. Delena swam like a wild animal, moving her arms and legs vigorously to push back the water and advance. They did not know how to do the crawl so, as in Dava, I impressed her by swimming quickly to the middle of the lake, leaving her far behind. Then, an old Earth trick, I offered to teach her how to swim that way, and the teacher in me found a sudden urge to correct the slightest mistakes of the pupil’s body movement in very pleasant ways. A sudden arousal, despite all that cold water, revealed more than I wanted, and she started to laugh at my visible discomfort.
“Someone is coming!” she whispered; “I feel his presence.”
“Munti?”
“No, Erin, and there is something wrong with him. His mind is distorted.” I turned around – some hundred meters away, an Erin was swimming toward us.
We separated, me staying close to the center of the lake, while she swam for the small beach. The Erin was approaching fast, with the same vigorous animal-like strokes. It was already obvious that I was the target so I sped up, backstroking to keep him within sight and at a safe distance. From close up his fury was even more obvious, strange behavior for this calm and gentle race. I risked a shout, asking him why he was following me.
“Talk,” he said abruptly, “Who are you? What are you? Why are you here?”
“I wanted to meet you. I will answer... Let’s go to the shore” Short phrases, sometimes only words, water sputtering, panting. Swimming for your life is a hard sport.
“Now!” He was gaining on me, the distance between us was down to about twenty meters and his endurance was definitely better. I switched to crawl, looking back every five or six strokes. And then I had a shock, seeing him also using the crawl, with a technique as good as mine. He had not been swimming like this only a few seconds ago. He was closing on me, and I went on again, backstroking with my body almost vertical, slowing in a careful sequence, diving underwater, and turning, after a large breath, just avoiding his hand. He sank under the water the next second but, driven by his inertia, he was now in front of me, creating an opening in his defense. I already had the small knife, always kept tied to my leg when traveling, in my hand, and I made a long cut, from hip to knee on the huge quadriceps muscles of his right leg. A red fog filled the water while I put a few meters between him and me. He turned, with a cold, lucid expression, the anger completely gone from his face, ready to fight.
“I don’t want to kill you. If you go to the other shore I will come to you.” He nodded and turned his back to me, swimming to the opposite beach; and somehow I was not surprised, as I had been told that they were non-violent and intelligent creatures, though of course the wound could have also had its part in this. Something was obviously bothering him.
I got out of the water only seconds after Delena. Looking at each other, still full of tension, scared, wet and nude, shivering from cold and fear, in a spontaneous gesture we took each other in our arms. It was comforting, as no other gesture of humans and even animals can be: the sentiment that you are not alone in facing a danger, feeling the other’s breathing, skins joined intimately by the thin layer of water and hearts still pounding. Then our lips touched slowly, then strongly, and a new game started, as old as the previous one. Lips feeling warmth, skin on skin, touching, shoulder, hair, breasts, hips, naked body against naked body, tenderness and violence, rhythm, a new complete world, so simple and natural.
The Erin was waiting for us, but I provided no explanations for the delay. We sat together in the place he had chosen, between some rocks, half the size of a man, forty feet away from the lake road. Nothing on his face showed the fury I had encountered in the water. It was the normal posture of the Erins, calm and serene. “I am Armin, I know who you are.” Are you joking?
“Someone just sh
outed, ‘Who are you?’ at me.”
“I know who you are and I don’t know what you are. Each statement has its own degree of certainty, depending on its surrounding context. The one greeting you here knows your name and the brief history of your coming to our lands. The angry man in the lake doesn’t know why your mental pattern matches Nogi and some Erin and Munti patterns. You look like a Baragan, but the way you construct your thoughts is more like the Nogi way of doing things.” I was attending a meeting with a ‘savage’ who was delivering an academic dissertation about mental patterns.
“The world is large,” I carefully answered, “there are things and people of which you are aware and ones of which you are not aware. I come from far away, and made a long journey to come here from the south, over mountains, desert and past dead cities.”
“I know the dead cities; they were once Baragan. I saw them and I saw also the ocean further east, yet still I found no match for your way of thinking.”
“Then I have no answer for you.” He stared hard at me and continued in a sad voice.
“Last night, my daughter was killed, together with seven other Erins, by Munti troops, in a night attack.” In Dava they plot war against Munti, here war against Erins. What game is this? ‘They play different games,’ Houston’s voice reminded me. I glanced at Delena; she was speechless. You don’t know ... how will Siena react?
“I am sorry; there must be a misunderstanding in all this.”
“There is none. We are in the same story as the one behind your errand here.” The same story… You are aware... Houston told me. But you…? Whom are you working for?
“I was hoping this discussion would happen. Some Travelers want war between Baragans and the Munti, others between you and the Munti. We have to know…”
“There is only circumstantial evidence to support this.”
Io Deceneus: Journal of a Time Traveler (The Living Universe) Page 31