The Magister (Earthkeep) (28 page)

"Marshal Mead?"  Yotoma addressed the Escort. 

"Of course, Magister," Mead nodded.  Heart Members stirred in their chairs with renewed interest.

Flossie Yotoma Lutu rose.  She was tall and smooth in her green dress tunic, her Magister's sash marking the bottom of her long upper torso.  "A question first," she said.  She turned to the Heart's resting Communication Escort.  "Hedwoman Gorodhov, we've done a good bit of hard work together for the Femmedarmery.  Would you agree?"

"Lots of it, Magister Lutu," replied Jovana Gorodhov.  She smiled.  "The Central Ural Garrison and Europe's military tribunals testify to that."

"And would you say, Hedwoman, that I have been a reasonable person?" Yotoma asked.

"A relentlessly reasonable person," Gorodhov replied with a wry smile, "more hidebound by reason than any Kanshou I've known.  A stickler for law and logic."

Yotoma nodded her thanks, then addressed the assembly.  "I ask," she said, "because it's got to be clear that no one is exempt from the changes afoot on this planet.  In fact," and her eyes fastened briefly on Aga Katir, then on Rabia Nuruk, "it may be those of us most dedicated to reason and justice who are most vulnerable to the changes."

Yotoma's stance took on a formality only partially military in nature. 

"I speak now as Rememorante Afortunada," she intoned.  Immediately her audience was compelled to a new mood.  Resistances lowered, all heads came up, all ears awoke. 

"I speak, calling back my childhood near Juba in the Sudan, fifty miles from the White Nile, calling back a jackal named Koussi, calling back Koussi as he came into our village from the desert almost every night, usually just before dawn, to scavenge our garbage and rubbish heaps." 

Her voice took on the storyteller's cadence.

"We had good communions, Koussi and I.  I would squat low at a distance from him, watching him tear at bones or shucks.  He never got his belly full, but when he had eaten all he could find, he would sit with me for a while, his small gray body hard to see against the sky behind him.  I knew he belonged to a pack, but other jackals never came near. 

"Now and again Koussi would all of a sudden lift his nose high to the sky, then relax again.  Or sometimes he'd point his nose up and then take off, fast as the wind, like danger was just around the corner.  I always wondered why he raised his nose like that.  He seemed to be listening raptly to something finely tuned.  I listened too — at the time, and long after the time when he ever came again.  I have been listening on and off all my life.  Sometimes, it has seemed, I could actually hear it, far in the distance, a single tune like my momah's voice, or the faint chords of a choir, or instruments.  I would hunker down and try harder to hear it, because it sounded comforting, like a true home.  But the harder I tried, the sooner it would fade away.  I could never hear it clearly."

Magister Lutu's voice became matter-of-fact. 

"And then I got educated.  I practiced law.  I became a police officer.  And after the Kanshoubu was born, I held seats of judgement in Femmedarme and civilian tribunals, listening to other voices, hearing no music.  Hearing only the summons of law and justice."  She sighed.  "The only internal work I ever did was to carry on conversations with my Self — rational dialogues, usually, in which I weighed the value and efficacy of one path or another." 

Yotoma cut her eyes at Zude, noting there a barely perceptible nod.  An old merriment sparked the features of both women.

Yotoma stood in the precise center of the circle and announced, "I know now what Koussi heard."  She turned in an irregular pattern so as to spread her attention throughout the assembly. 

"He heard the music of the Source Self."  She paused. 

"Several of you Afortunadas here have heard the howling of jackals and you know how haunting those cries were — even terrifying.  But to Koussi those howls were music, the music of the jackal pack — not only the music that warned them of danger but the music that was their home, their center, their joy.  No matter how far apart they had wandered."

Yotoma drew a long breath.  "Kanshoumates, you deserve to know why I have withdrawn from our proceedings these last few days, why I've left the hard work to Magister Adverb." 

She rested one hand on the half-hitch of her sash and turned her eyes for a moment to Femmedarme Rabia Nuruk.  "Simply put," she said, "I have at last been listening to the music."

No one moved.

Yotoma continued.  "By the grace of that music — that magnificent symphony — I have been recalling every executive decision that I have made over the last twenty-odd years for the Africa-Europe-Mideast Tri-Satrapy.  I have been measuring the sympathetic vibration of every one of those decisions by the music in my soul.  I found some of them to be in harmony with my symphony.  Some others, though they may have seemed wise enough at the time, are now loud and dissonant, a cacophony of inappropriate thoughts and actions.  I could never make those same decisions again.  Never."

Yotoma contemplated the group. 

"There are four of you right here in this room, Members of the Heart of All Kanshou, who have also been hearing the music, who have come into full contact with your Source Selves, who now know where your true guidance lies.  I won't point you out.  You know who you are." 

As she explored the faces before her, she carefully focused on foreheads rather than on eyes. 

"When I heard you listening with me, even as we also heard Adverb's words, I knew for the first time what the Heart's decision will be.  You have given me faith.  And I thank you." 

Yotoma waited for many seconds before she bowed to Escort Mead and took her seat beside Zude.

In the silence of the Gather-Room, Amah Sea Admiral Sulan Ka'ahumanu's voice was a piercing whisper: "Thank you, Magister."

Gently, Yotoma nodded to her.

Zude rose.  She let the silence lengthen while she gauged the mood of her listeners.  At last she spoke.

"My colleagues, if we close our eyes and settle our minds into the comfort of the best that is within us, into our memories of a child's laughter or our first breathtaking discovery of love, if we can touch the Inner Self that reminds us of who we truly are, then we can see there the meaning and the beauty of our lives." 

She paused, watching some pairs of eyes as they closed, other pairs as they focused upon her. She kept her own eyes open, her voice matter-of-fact. 

"We can also see the linear progress of Time as we have conceived it.  It presses toward us out of the vivid and magnificent narrative that we call our history, flowing forward from this moment into the countless unknown possibilities that we call our future.  In that flow of Time is a window.  It has been opening gradually over the past weeks, and now it is closing again.  Once it closes, it will be lost forever."

Zude held the moment carefully. 

"This window frames the most splendid of our possible futures.  It urges us to shake off fears and old beliefs.  It dares us to test our identity as women of uncompromising courage and good will."

Zude now spoke slowly, firmly. 

"The present is the only thing we have, and the power of all human wanting, in all past moments of human experience, is visiting us in this present moment.  Here.  Now.  At the sill of this window in time." 

She turned within the circle, looking directly at whatever eyes would meet hers. 

"We cannot step through the window of yesterday or a few hours ago, for those moments have fled.  We cannot step through it tonight or tomorrow, for by then the window will have closed.  We can only step through it now." 

Zude realized that she was holding her Magister's sash, her thumb stroking it lightly.  Unhurriedly, she studied the sash and then gently pressed its ends against her cobalt blue tunic.  She raised her head. 

"You are the only people in the world," she said, "who can take us through the window.  You are, right here and right now, the key players in humanity's most crucial decision.  What you are called upon to do will come from the deepest knowledge of your truest Self.  With your dissolving of the Kanshoubu, every Amah, every Femmedarme, every Vigilante — and every other person on Little Blue — will be released to the rich achievement of this next step in human evolution."

Zude's eyes were alight.  Her audience was motionless.  An audible sniff came from someone behind her.  Casually, Zude turned to see Flyer First Class Niki Keya of Calcutta pressing a handkerchief to her cheek.  The old Amah had been merciless in her hounding of Zude and Yotoma during the past week.  As she caught Zude's eye, Keya coughed several times and blew her nose, conspicuously dealing with the symptoms of a bad cold.

When the Magister spoke again, she did close her eyes. 

"You are Our Heart," she said.  "You are those in whom every Kanshou trusts.  We thank you for keeping us these many years in such safety, in such honor, and in such love."

There was no sound.  For one fragile moment, the will of every Kanshou in the room rose into a singularity of understanding and acceptance.  Zude held her breath.  The moment endured.  And still endured.  It did not begin to fray until Amah Keya's sniffing nudged the group into small tension-relieving movements.

Zude dared to open her eyes.  The array of faces around her wore a wide spectrum of feelings, some of them changing — even as she watched them — from a deep wonder to a smiling conviction.  Others were frozen in bewilderment or concern.  Still others fought to control displeasure or frustration.

Zude released a slow sigh and started toward her seat.  She was halted in her tracks by the steady voice of Vice-Magister Winifred Glee, who was on her feet and staring across the room at the southwestern door. 

"She's coming," Glee announced, her smile dazzling.  "Magister Lin-ci Win is coming!" 

Chairs swiveled.  Eyes began looking with those of Vigilante Glee toward the doorway.  The hum of excitement mounted.  Communication Escort Mead pounded the gavel to still the rising voices.  "Colleagues!" she called out, at the same time pressing her fingers to her earphone.  She struck the gavel again.  "Colleagues!"  Chairs swiveled back toward her.  The clamor subsided. 

"Colleagues," she announced.  "I'm told that Vice-Magister Glee is correct.  Magister Lin-ci Win is presently approaching the Rotunda Gather-Room."

No sooner had Mead made the announcement than a commotion arose on the southwestern arcade.  Suddenly, the doors were flung open.  As both protocol and their excitement decreed,
every woman in the room began respectfully to stand, each welcoming the entry of Magister Win's familiar mobile Greatchair, its air jets puffing boldly as they bore her smoothly over the carpet toward them.

No Greatchair appeared.  Nothing, in fact, appeared. 

Zude put her hand on Magister Lutu's shoulder.  "Flossie!" she breathed.

"Watch!" whispered Yotoma.

Just then, an audible gasp rose from the Heart of All Kanshou.  The Gather-Room's entranceway framed a sight that no one in the room had ever seen before: Magister Lin-ci Win, an imposing red-and-silver clad figure, stood tall in the doorway, leaning heavily on elbow crutches.  Her long Magister cloak hung regally from the back of her shoulders, and no cowl covered the short-cropped black hair.  She paused for a moment, a portrait of vigorous womanhood, backed by her three Amah aides.  Then she began a slow, majestic journey across the expanse of carpet. 

She walked awkwardly but unaided, save by her crutches, her eyes aflame, her lips parted in a proud half-smile.  Her modest entourage followed her, their radiant faces lighting their Magister's way toward the astonished Heart Of All Kanshou.

At the Amah Magister's approach, three Members of the Heart began in impromptu unison the soft intoning of a high, open-throated "Ah-h-h!"  Others took up the sound, until the full assembly held the note and sustained it.  Kanshou and the civilians crowding the doorway poured uninvited into the room, lending their voices to the sound that filled the chamber.

As Lin-ci Win coaxed her unaccustomed legs into their triumphant march toward the meeting circle, the moving sound about her swelled in volume.  At her halfway mark, the group before her parted, pushing its chairs into a welcoming horseshoe.  When the Magister was a short distance from the edge of the Heart, vigorous applause began from all parts of the now crowded room.  It buoyed the chanted sound to a still higher plateau and grew in its force and volume.  Shouts and cries replaced the chanting.  "Lin-ci Win!"  "Brava!"  "Our Magister!" 

When the Amah Magister drew near the circle, she halted and dropped her handgrips, letting the crutches hang from her arms.  Slowly she extended her hands, lifting one in the direction of Zella Terremoto Adverb, the other toward Flossie Yotomo Lutu. 

The applause and the shouting soared. 

Zude and Yotoma stepped to Lin-ci Win, each taking a hand to steady her as she covered the few paces remaining.  The ovation roared to its climax.  The three Magisters of Little Blue's Kanshoubu stood together, holding hands and facing their Heart.

Zude found herself panting with the effort to take it all in.  She looked to her left and saw the runnels of sweat that coursed down Lin-ci Win's face, and the tears that coursed down Yotoma's.  Both of her Co-Magisters were laughing softly.  Zude surveyed the throngs that were still flooding into the Gather-Room — both Kanshou and the civilians who had followed Lin-ci's entrance and now stood only a few feet away from the Heart, at a boundary tacitly and unanimously acknowledged.  It was their applause and shouting that still swelled and subsided, swelled and subsided, in a pattern that seemed destined to last forever.

Zude felt the Amah Magister squeezing her hand, and apparently Yotoma's too, at the same time.  She squeezed back. 

Then Lin-ci dropped their hands and stood by herself, addressing the Communication Escort.  "Marshal Mead!" she shouted above the noise of the crowded room.  "Marshal Mead!"

Mead's gavel cracked, again and again.  Members of the Heart, ready by now to resume their seats, left off their clapping.