The Bridge II
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Table of Contents Chapter 2, part 1 appears in this issue. |
Chapter 2: Requiem Revisitedpart 2 of 3 |
Me’Avi et Sharma, grimacing inwardly, but smiling on the outside, turned slowly to face the Maestro.
“Well, Maestro,” she said through slightly gritted teeth, “we must see what we can do to help you. You must realize, though, that the screening room people have much of their own work to do and cannot be available every minute for your needs.”
“I do not ask for their every minute. I ask for three screens of my own. I ask for three screens only and that I be allowed to watch whatever I want on them. Is that too much to ask for in making a Requiem for that beautiful world down there? How could we allow such a lovely world to seek its rest, its end without telling the true story of the grandeur and tragedy of its loss to the Galaxy?”
Me’Avi et Sharma, unable to stand it any longer, in a sarcastic voice, said, “I think, Maestro, that you put altogether too much importance to a simple dirge for a dead people.
“The planet will still be there when they have gone and, perhaps, there will still be the grandeur of the place without them. It is only a song, Maestro, it is only a song.
“However, because the Galactic Council would wish my complete cooperation, I shall send the screening room orders to give you your wish. You may have your three screens to look at and use as you will and when you will.
“Now, if you are satisfied, I would like to ask you to go back to your business and leave me alone!”
Having gained what he had come for and feeling that it might not be the best time to ask for anything else, Maestro Vertraumer beat a hasty retreat.
“Hocat! See to it that the good Maestro gets his three screens and then, for your help in this situation, tell the kitchen that you are to have goat’s head stew for your dinner tonight!”
* * *
President Cummings had a little trouble with the report in front of him. It made no sense. How could there be another organized entity in the United States territory that he did not know about? Yet, that seemed to be the case.
His soldiers had picked up a number of street gang members who had been fighting over the loss of their leader; a common enough thing in the less controlled areas. But they told their captors that they had been trying to ambush an organized group of people who were trying to get out of the area.
They wanted to get them because they had many goods with them that would make them the richest gang in the area. They also had a number of women and their leader liked capturing women.
The President called out to his son and, when he came, handed him the report. “Check this out,” he commanded. “If it is true it may be a danger to us. It also could help with the female shortage our soldiers are having.
“And see to it that those gang members, after suitable persuasion, are allowed to enter the army. Good recruits like that are always hard to find.”
* * *
Jiang Yu-wei had been busy indeed. The new university that he created was causing a great stir among the people and many sought entrance to the classes.
He, as one man, one scholar could not teach them all, so he had sent messengers back to the other scholars of his village, telling them that the long wait, the hiding, was over. Now, he told them, study of the classics and teaching of the classics would no longer run from the light of the sun. Ten of them believed the messengers and had started on the long, dangerous journey to the territory of General Chu.
Eight of them lived to complete the journey. Six of them convinced the General that they were, indeed, serious scholars. The other two departed in the way of all captured spies.
Courses were being created by the newly respected scholars. Then, all the scholars together would debate the material and edit it until it was accurate and teachable and examinations could be created to test those who would learn.
The School of Industrial Skills found its beginning faculty in much the same way; finding the best of the craftsmen and industrial artists and bringing them to the university to compete for places on the faculty.
To be good enough to compete guaranteed a better life. It assured a better life even if one were not selected to be a faculty member for it set one apart as one recognized as a true master craftsman. To win, to be picked as a Master Crafts Instructor, or, even better, as an Industrial Scholar, was to gain status and a level of respect from the people that they had never before even dared to dream of.
Students’ applications for entry were then examined and those seemingly the most sincere and bright were interviewed. Those who would be the school’s first students were made to commit to staying with the university for ten years, should they pass the final exams and should they show talent for teaching. The first class would be the instructors, working under the scholars, for the second class.
Each year, until the university had enough faculty, the best students who had teaching talents, would teach, under supervision, the class following them. And, in each class, only those who passed the examinations would advance to the next class. Those who did not pass would be assigned duties by General Chu, at a level commensurate with the level that they had achieved in the university.
Both schools at the university, the academic, and the industrial, because resources were so limited, would use this method to train faculty and to give, at least, some learning to all who entered.
* * *
Jonkil sat in his usual chair and watched the sun go down over the village below. It was something he did every night. He thought of the years he had spent monitoring the Earth and its people and the sadness he felt for the people there. He missed watching over those crazy, unpredictable people.
Still, he was glad that he was here. The Final Report was no longer his responsibility. It was a report that he knew he could never have written. It was not in his heart to write them off. It was not in his heart to produce the final words that would permanently quarantine that system from the galactic civilization he had served.
Somehow, he thought, a new leader with charisma would arise there. Somehow, if that person were one of the good ones, those people would seek to advance anew. “Still,” he thought, “maybe I am being an old fool. The good ones, most of them anyway, the ones who sought peace and respect for others, seemed to wind up being killed. It seems as if those people have some sort of suicide complex that prevents them from becoming who they could be. It is sad, so sad.”
* * *
In the Galactic Council, the news that Maestro Vertraumer had decided to rewrite his Requiem did not go over well. Funding for that whole system should have stopped years ago, yet there was still an observation post there. And, now, the Maestro was actually living at that station so he could gain enough knowledge to write a bigger Requiem. It was insane. The quarantine should have gone into effect years ago.
Others disagreed. The funding being used was small and a little more time, in galactic terms, was not significant. Should not the people who gave us Music (a gift that as yet no other race had mastered with any great skill) be allowed to use that same gift to express their sorrow at the loss of their home world?
To us it is the dismissal of just one more world, among hundreds, that had failed. To them it was the end of a home spoken of in many of their greatest pieces of Auditory Art. Let them be; let them write their Requiem as they will.
And so it was decided that the gift of time and patience would be given to those who had given the gift of music.
* * *
On Dreamers’ World a new generation was growing up, one who had never seen the Blue Planet, one who had no real, discernible ties to that dying world. To them the land they stood on, the seas they sailed, the air they flew in, was their earth. They knew not the beauty of a golden moon in the skies, nor the power of tides causing great waves to battle with the land.
There were no great veldts here, and the Alps had no imitators on this world. It was a world where the smoothly flowing rivers had no thoughts of canyons and rapids and even their waterfalls sang gentle tunes. It was a world, like many of those owing allegiance to the Galactic Council, that had been tamed to make life less dangerous.
It was world that, in the music the new generation created, always sang in soft harmony. And that was the problem.
The music of their ancestors soared and dove and laughed and wailed in extremes. The music of their ancestors captivated minds and captured hearts. It was a music that gave no quarter in its fight to conquer souls. It was that music that won its people a second chance at continuances. And this new generation, this first generation of Dreamers’ World could not understand it, so they could not write it.
* * *
Harlan McCabe looked down into the valley below. There were about a hundred soldiers of the so-called “United States Army” following their trail and the soldiers were gaining on them.
“Janine,” he called out in a low whisper, “get back to the others and get them to hurry. The continental center is still two days away at the rate they’re traveling. That is not fast enough if they are to keep ahead of the soldiers. I don’t have to tell you what will happen to our people if those soldiers catch up with us.”
In a quick, seemingly single motion, Janine was up and gone at the sustainable but ground-covering pace she had learned to use early in her hazardous life. It was that pace, which only one or two of the men could keep up with, combined with her smaller size that allowed her to go through places too small for those same men, and an uncanny nose for danger that made her the ideal scout and messenger that she had become.
Soon she was in the midst of the main group and urging them to move faster. They listened because they knew that when a warning came from her it was real and their lives depended on their quick reactions.
The group leader called her over and requested her to get Harlan McCabe to send to the continental center for help in bringing in the supplies they carried. It was imperative the none of them fall into the hands of those after them. There must be no clues as to what the continental center was doing. There must be no clues as to how far they had come in restructuring civil society.
The time would come when they would have the strength and the technology to be open, but it was not yet.
Soon Janine was back with the scouts and, after the requested messenger had been sent to get the help they needed, they started to build a false trail in hopes that the soldiers could be fooled into following them and not the main party.
* * *
At first the Maestro Vertraumer sent his three screens wildly all over the Blue Planet, seeking, from a distance, to feel and know the people he must write about. They all, he knew, had to have songs that one could sing about them. But, he realized, there was too much.
The ruins, no matter where they were, what continent they were on, were pretty much alike. Ragged people living and fighting for space and food, the tough and merciless eating while the weaker died. And, after a while it became blurred and his brain fogged so as not to see what his heart could not accept.
Then he found a little spot of sanity in all the mess. It was in a place called Newtown. It was almost surreal to see people working together. To see people smiling and laughing. Here, he thought, was a little theme to wind into the Requiem’s sad lines, here was a last bit of life and hope. It was thrilling to see it and, already, the music began playing in his head.
He must have Me’Avi et Sharma come and see this. Perhaps she could help him understand it, see the music in it.
Copyright © 2005 by euhal allen
