RABAN (The Rabanian Book 2)

by Dan Haronian

  "We’ll build everything here and deliver it to Naan as prepared systems. I can use people from Naan to do the final assembly."

  He nodded and we continued eating without further discussion. After dinner my father stood up, picked up a few plates and utensils from the table, and carried them to the kitchen. "Come to my study. I want to show you something," he said over his shoulder.

  I looked at him as he walked away, and then at my mother. She shrugged her shoulders and said nothing.

  My father was sitting in front of his terminal when I walked into the room.

  "Do you know this place?" he asked pointing to the screen.

  I moved closer. "It's in Seragon," I said leaning my head forward. "You are close to Shor," I said surprised. "What are you doing there?"

  "I want to tell you something," he said and looked at me.

  I sighed. I didn't want to be there. This was his kingdom, his seat of power. This was a place where I’d always felt like a little child. Unwillingly I pulled up a chair and sat down next to him.

  "Shor has seven protections that hide it from everyone as you and I already know. Each of these seven circles of protection is more complicated than the last, and the seventh is more complicated than all the rest combined."

  "Why are you telling me this now?" I asked.

  "Because Seragon is still dangerous to us."

  I raised my eyebrows. "It has been thirty years since you left," I said, “Seragon is irrelevant now.”

  "Time is not a factor here. This is not an unsolved crime, with a statute of limitations."

  "Did something happen? Why is this relevant now?"

  "I’ve found a way to keep them away from here," he said as if he hadn’t heard me. "I’ve created seven blocks around Mampas. They are Novi, Temach, Kashmad, Finekia, Rutz, Nome and the last one, the one that will completely expose Shor, is Mampas.

  I shook my head. "Blocks?"

  "Every time a threat from Seragon crosses a boundary, Shor will lose one of its protections. If a threat from Seragon reaches Mampas, or Naan for that matter, it will expose Shor to the galaxy. Seragon's greatest secret of all would become public knowledge as soon as they entered either planet’s atmosphere."

  I let out a silent sigh. "Why does this matter to me? Why are you telling me this now?"

  "Because it's time."

  "It's time for what?"

  He looked at me. "I developed these protections after you went to study on Mampas," he said and smiled. "I feared something would happen to you there."

  "So I walked away from the greenhouse and you felt you needed to protect me," I said. "Seragon might be looking for you. They have no interest in me."

  "You don't know that," he said. "In any case since then I have checked the validity of this scrambling at least once a week."

  "You must be exaggerating," I said, wondering at his paranoia.

  "No, it only takes me a minute. Wouldn't you invest a minute of your time once a week to be sure you son was protected?"

  I nodded. "Is there some moral to this story?"

  "Yes, you shouldn’t underestimate Seragon. Not even after thirty years."

  "You think I'm underestimating something?"

  "I think sometimes you are too focused on what you want to do at the expense of not seeing other important things."

  "How different is that from the claim that you are too focused on Seragon when your thoughts should be elsewhere?"

  He didn't answer, and I thought I’d gone too far. Again.

  "You're right,” he finally said. “Balance is very important, but as I told you this doesn't take too much of my time."

  "But still you are distracted; your thoughts are in Seragon."

  He nodded. "Yes, sometimes."

  "Do you really think that Seragon would come back into our lives? After all I am innocent. Everyone here is innocent. Except for you no one took anything from there."

  "Who was there is important to Seragon, but keeping the secret of Shor is just as important, and they don't know how much that secret is compromised. They haven't done anything so far, but I have no doubt they know we are here."

  "So why haven’t they come already?"

  "I assume they’ve been considering what to do this the whole time. I don’t think they’ll come unless some catastrophe happens here. For thirty years I think they’ve been looking for an indirect reason to come here. Something unrelated to Shor that would allow them to take care of their little problem.

  I thought I understood why he was telling me this now, but I wanted to be sure. "You still haven’t explained why you're showing me this now."

  "Because it's time for you to know. You are starting something big and you should know they are still out there, waiting for their chance. I wanted you to know that this protection is there for us."

  I stood up. "I understand. In any case you know I have no business with Seragon."

  "I know that is what you think now."

  "And I also think you worry too much," I said and walked out of the room.

  "What do you mean they want to market for themselves?" yelled Naan.

  "They want to increase their profits, and they have a couple of ideas how to make it more efficient," Daio said from the other end of the line.

  "They have ideas?" repeated Naan.

  "Yes, Raban was here today to talk about it."

  Daio practically heard him grimace. "I realize you don't like this."

  "No I don't. The marketing that we do for their products is important for our economy as well."

  "Yes, but money isn’t everything," said Daio promptly as if he was expecting Naan's respond.

  "Money is not everything, but it's not nothing."

  "If there is a chance that they will start to think and talk like us, we should let them," said Daio. "It will pay off also for us in the end."

  "Their sales are almost twenty five percent of our exports," said Naan. "If they go out on their own, and they increase their sales very much, they might outpace us. I don’t want to wake up one day and find that you are suddenly no longer in power."

  "That is exactly what I want."

  "To lose your position?"

  "My position is not the issue. If their sales manage to catch up to ours, it would also mean that their motivations have changed and Naan will be unified. That is more important than anyone’s personal position."

  “As always, you only think about how to outshine your brother," said Naan bitterly.

  "I do not want to outshine anyone, surely not my brother. You should keep in mind how much he sacrificed so we could have what we have today."

  “Yes, yes, I know,” mumbled Naan to himself.

  "I will expect your full cooperation," said Daio. "And in any case it won’t happen quickly. If they start with one shuttle it will be years before they have a fleet of shuttles. There’s really no need to worry too much about this."

  "I'll cooperate, but I don’t have to like it," said Naan and broke the connection.

  I tossed and turned throughout the night thinking about the Doctor, my father, and the Books. I counted the hours until the morning. A familiar empty tiredness leached into me. I wasn't living in my parent's house anymore, so at least I didn't have to explain to anyone what was bothering me so much that I hadn’t slept for two nights in a row. I got out of bed and was completely disoriented for several seconds. When I finally walked to the bathroom I decided I had to put a stop to this or otherwise I’d go crazy.

  Finally I went to work. Everyone there was expecting to hear the result of my meeting with my father. The managers of all the different units and their core team members were gathered in the meeting room. They looked worried. I didn't make them wait. I told them that my father had given us his blessing despite his fears that this would expose us to things the Chosen was founded to stand against. The meeting room was filled with cries of joy. No one really took my father's concern seriously. I looked at their cheerful faces and for a moment I thou
ght that they were acting exactly as my father had feared.

  The different teams began to organize. The plans were already made, but now that it was for real we needed to get moving. I met with each group separately. The first one was with the team in charge of choosing the products to be marketed in the first year. The second meeting was with the team in charge of building the cryogenic freezing systems that eventually would be installed in the shuttle. That afternoon I met with the team that would pick the delivery routes between our target planets, and in the evening I met with the marketing team. It was late that night when I met the last team. They were in charge of finding us an appropriate shuttle.

  All of the meetings were efficient and effective. I left the office late but satisfied by the productivity of the day. My busy day had also prevented me from thinking about my plan.

  When I reached the Shuttle the last of the students had already gone home. After verifying that I was alone, I walked quickly up the stairs and into the terminal room. The heavy door had been replaced with a light door and coded lock. I opened it without much of a problem and stepped inside. It was the first time I’d ever done something so completely against everything I believed in. My heart was racing with excitement. My conscience awoke when I stepped hesitantly into the room. I looked at the terminals and almost turned back. A voice in my head told me that maybe I should speak about this with my father. Maybe we could find another solution. But then another voice chimed in. If my father was hiding the eighth book for some reason, he would only be terrified by the thought that I knew about it. He could easily increase the protection around the book to heights I could never climb.

  With a heavy heart I walked to one of the terminals. I swore to myself that once I discovered that this was all merely a sick obsession I would never set foot in the Shuttle again. I would focus all of my energy on the new mission I’d taken upon myself. I sat down at a terminal and put on the neck sensor. There was no sense in scanning the top levels of its memory; I’d used that same terminal countless times. If my father was indeed hiding something there it was probably well hidden. I dug deep into the hidden memory locations that had no addresses. Still I found nothing. I did the same with the second terminal. I had been working on the terminals for only two hours, but I’d learned everything I knew about the secrets of scrambling at my father’s knee, and I knew that if he wanted to hide something from me, it would probably take much longer to find it.

  It was getting late. Although there wasn't much chance someone would come to the Shuttle, I felt as if I’d been there for too long. I rose from the chair and glanced around the room. When I was sure I wasn’t leaving any signs of my intrusion I walked to the door. As I passed the networked terminal an odd thought crossed my mind. I hadn’t even considered searching there. It seemed impossible that he would hide what I was looking for there. He’d brainwashed us with every lesson he gave, that it was absolutely forbidden to connect the Books to the network. He pounded into us that such an action would expose them to the risk of being scrambled to death.

  I started down the stairs wondering if twisted and mad as it seemed, the network would be the best hiding place. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. As I crossed the main study hall I was drowning in speculations, each crazier than next.

  I stopped beside the door and looked back the way I’d come. Finally I gave in to the absurdity. Promising myself it was my last heresy, I went back, unlocked the door, and sat down in front of network terminal. I gazed at the screening angrily for a second before I finally hooked up the sensor and started to surf.

  My face twisted, my naked vibrated, and the screen flipped rapidly. I looked for my father's trails. They were so small that normal people would never notice them, but after so many years surfing along with him I could find them as easily as I could recognize the smell of my mother's cooking.

  I started with the information circle of Naan. The number of sites there could shame even the much more established planets in the region. After finding nothing, I visited Mampas, and eventually I went as far as Seragon. Wherever I looked I could find nothing unusual. My father's trails were faint. They were like a light wind in the network, passing through but leaving behind only minimal traces.

  I wandered there for an hour. Finally I decided I’d lost my mind. It was as if I was possessed, and needed to seek help. I started to surf my way back to Naan wondering how I’d ended up like this. The face of the Doctor popped into my head. Could it be that this sophisticated and evil man had set a trap for me just for the fun of it? But how could the Doctor set a trap for me? How could he know of my concerns about the seventh Book? And then, without warning, while angrily surfing back toward Naan, I noticed a familiar door. It was only for a split second and I thought I was imagining things. My head was loaded with so many thoughts that I was sure that the boundary between imagination and reality was becoming blurred. I went forward and back again, just to make sure. When I surfed backwards I twisted my neck in the way my father had taught me when I was little, the door appeared again. An electrifying shiver went through my body as if someone had hooked me to high-voltage power line. I was already in the information circle of Naan. "What is this door doing here?" I asked out loud.

  Since that magical night with my father, I’d wandered around Shor countless time to memorize its position and practiced the neck twist that no one besides my father and I knew about. Still it had been years since I’d last surfed there. I’d only done the twist out of frustration, but I guess there are some things you never forget.

  I tried it again and the door blinked open once more. I pulled off the sensor and stood up. I continued to look at the screen, drifting into new crazy thoughts. How could it be? How could the same door leading to Shor be in the inner circles of Naan? I didn't have any answer. For a moment I thought my father was behind all this. A moment later I thought about Seragon. Maybe it was them. My father's warnings came to my mind. No, it could not be them, I immediately concluded. My father wouldn't have let them come so close.

  I gazed at the screen for a few seconds, afraid. Finally I sat back down and hooked up the sensor again. Summoning my courage I surfed again, twisted my neck, and when the door opened I went in. The information paths disappeared and the screen went black. A few seconds passed but nothing happened. I felt like I was floating inside a protected and empty space. It felt like a corridor. I moved forward. All of a sudden the screen became bright, the information paths re-appeared, and I found myself back outside and a short distance away from the entrance. It was as if I’d jumped forward. I went back, opened the door, and went inside again. The screen went black and I stopped. I waited there, longer than I’d waited before, but nothing happened. I surfed forward and found myself outside again further away than before. It felt as if the door hid a springboard, a network springboard.

  I removed the sensor and stood up. My face was warm and sweaty. I wiped the sweat away with the back of my arm and started pacing the room. I glared at the screen as if it was an opponent and we were taking a break in the midst of some fierce competition. It wasn’t just my imagination, I assured myself. The door was actually there. I’d entered something, and therefore it must be real. My thoughts wandered to Shor. I’d never gone inside. My father had warned me it would be a stupid thing to do. Was this what it was like? Was it a network springboard as well, or was this just another damn test devised by my father?

  Tiredness and the weariness hit me. I leaned on one of the chairs and closed my eyes. I stood frozen like this for a while, trying to recover. No sensible explanations came to mind, except that it was nearly daybreak, and that I really needed to get away from the Shuttle. Suddenly I realized that if the door was in the network I didn’t have to access it from the Shuttle. I could get there from any network connection.

  I went back to the terminal, covered up my trail, and left the Shuttle. I hoped what I had done would be good enough to hide my activities from my father. I ran to my car and stopped there for a momen
t sucking in deep breaths of the cool mooring air before getting in and driving the empty road home.

  I’d gone to the network terminal in the Room to search for the eighth Book, hoping to confirm its existence. Instead I’d found something that was amazing all by itself. Again I wondered if it could have been Seragon’s doing. I even wondered if it could have been some genius from Mampas, but I was forced to conclude that my father would not allow such a hidden place to be created by outsiders anywhere near Naan. I had no doubt he would have discovered it immediately and blocked it. But what if he created this place for some use that had nothing to do with my imaginary book? My head was spinning.

  I got home and barely had the strength to undress and fall on my bed before unconsciousness overwhelmed me.

  "Remember, this is our secret.”

  "Nobody should know about this."

  Those were the words ringing in my head when I woke up the next day around noon. The events of the previous night raced through my mind as I rose from my bed. The idea of this special door and the information circles around Naan, made me think for a moment that I’d dreamed the whole thing. It all resembled the dream about my father from a few days before. I dressed quickly. With these thoughts still haunting me I called my office. My voice thick with morning hoarseness, I told them I was sick and went back to bed. Now in addition to feeling like a thief, I was also a liar. I wondered how low I could go. I wallowed in self-pity for a few more minutes then got into the shower. I stood there for a long time with the scalding water scouring my skin. When I couldn't breathe in the steam any longer I got out.

  Wrapped in a towel I walked from the bathroom to the terminal, thinking about the springboard. I wondered if it was a springboard that allowed you enter the hidden place. I dried off and put on comfortable clothes then sat down in front of the terminal. In other circumstances I would probably have been filled with a curiosity to understand the mechanism behind it. But now there were too many questions. The project of my life was moving forward without me and here I was working behind my father's back. I felt sick.