Yesterday is Tomorrow
ONE THOUSAND THIRTEEN YEARS BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF THE REIGN OF RECAB, KING OF DISHON
The Iceler stood above the fallen body of Haket, reviling in it's victory. "Get up and fight, you coward" it screamed out. Haket struggled to his feet, his muscles aching from endless battery, his head swirling. No sooner had he gotten to his feet then he was too weak to keep his balance, and fell back into the snow. The Iceler laughed, "You pathetic creature. I'll show you who is master of the mountains." With that, the Iceler picked up Haket, and tossed him effortlessly down the slope.
Haket had grown up as a prince in his father's castle. His father, also named Haket, was the king of Gowron, a rather large kingdom by the Appien Ocean. The elder Haket was a kind ruler, who genuinely sought to keep all his people happy and provided for. However he was rather naive when it came to ruling, and ended up making things harder for the people through his blundering decisions. Finally he was assassinated by his own brother, who sought to take control of the throne. His brother tried to kill any possible rivals, and young Haket, only seventeen, was forced to flee with a small band of friends.
As they were fleeing the country, they found it necessary to cross the Coler Mountains, a largely unexplored and totally unsettled range of mountains which formed the barrier between Gowron and it's neighboring country Durant. The mountains were cold and harsh. It was thought that nothing could survive in its brutal climate. Haket and his friends found otherwise.
The journey across the mountains was one Haket was obviously unprepared for. In his hurry to leave, he had neglected to bring many supplies, among them food, mountain climbing gear, and although they had some clothing, not nearly enough to combat the temperature. In particular they lacked gloves, and warm footwear. He and his companions would almost certaintly have been killed by the elements, but they were never given the chance.
They were hardly two hours into the mountains when they were attacked by Icelers. Icelers are creatures which resemble humans but are made completely of ice. Although it was well known that these creatures existed in parts of Fabulae where snow and ice stretched on seemingly forever, few had expected them to be in a place like Coler, where the mountains where only about five kilometers wide, and a length of 100 kilometers.
Several Icelers had leaped out of hiding, and before Haket could react his band was scattered, and he himself received several blows which left him sprawled in the snow. It is here we joined him, at the beginning of this tale.
After being thrown, Haket allowed himself to slide slowly down the mountain for about two or three dekameters, at the end of which he was gently stopped by a large boulder. He forced himself to stand up, and began to run away from his rapidly approaching foe. The Iceler was used to the mountain, and bounded down effortlessly after Haket. By comparison, Haket was moving slow and awkwardly. The Iceler soon caught up.
Haket unsheathed his sword and turned around to face his foe. As the Iceler ran towards him, he swung his sword at its head. The Iceler's arm flew up to take the force of the blow. Haket was expecting the arm to shatter or be cut in half, but instead only a dent was made in it. A large dent, but just a dent nevertheless. What's more, the Iceler was unfazed by his wound, and proceeded to hammer Haket with its fists. The first blow sent Haket flying through the air, and he landed on surprisingly compact snow. Before Haket could regain his orientation, the Iceler grabbed him by the neck and lifted him into the air. Haket struggled violently against the icy hands. It was then that the snow beneath them gave way, they fell a couple meters through a tunnel, and tumbled out into a warm underground room.
It felt like a blazing hot summer's day in midafternoon. The Iceler immediately started to melt, and tried frantically to climb back up the tunnel. This was impossible since it was three meters wide and built straight up and down, with sides as smooth as glass. Haket waited about five minutes as his enemy was reduced to a puddle of water. Then he collapsed with relief and lay on the floor several minutes, until he had completely caught his breath.
Finally he sat up and looked around him. The room was filled with switches, buttons, monitors and lights. He lay down again and for the first time became aware of how warm it really was. It had taken time for his body to warm up, but now he was actually beginning to sweat. "Deka, its Hot"
"Temperature adjustment required?"
Haket leaped up. "Who said that?"
"It is I, the teacher."
Haket tried to discern where the sound was coming from, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere. "Who?"
"The teacher. I am part of the information network. I will teach you how to use the equipment. Temperature adjustment required?"
"Uh, yeah, could you bring it down about fifteen degrees Celsius." Immediately the room cooled off to a pleasant temperature.
"Is there anything else you require? I can tell you anything you want."
"Could you tell me where my friends are?" asked Haket in a hesitant tone. He was sure the teacher would not know what he was talking about.
One of the largest monitors clicked on. It was about three meters tall and four meters wide. It showed Haket's friends beaten, bound with rope, and tied together in a group. They were surrounded by Icelers. A couple of his friends even looked dead. Beside the monitor, a separate screen displayed a map which showed where they were on the mountain, and also where they were in relationship to where Haket was. They were actually just a few dekameters away, not counting the five meters Haket was underground.
"I've got to help them," shouted Haket.
"Rescue mission is in planning." The voice that answered this time was different from the teacher's voice.
"Who is this?"
"This is the Executer. Specify method of rescue to be used."
"The quickest one." Haket was not sure what was happening, but he was eager to help his friends.
As Haket watched on the monitor, the ground under which each individual Iceler was standing became red hot with heat. The Icelers fled in terror. As soon as all the Icelers were gone, the ground underneath Haket's friends opened up and swallowed them. The next thing Haket knew, the ceiling opened up and his friends landed beside him.
"Deka, what just happened?"
Haket looked at the friend who had spoken. "I'm as confused as you are," he said. Suddenly, Haket's attention was grabbed by Daved. Daved lay lifeless on the ground. His face was blue, and dried blood was caked around his mouth. "Is he alright?" he asked.
One of Haket's friends opened his mouth to answer, but shut it as soon as he heard the voice of the teacher. "He is badly damaged, but still alive."
Then came the executers voice. "Repair injured?"
Haket would have answered with a vocal response, but he forgot himself and just nodded his head. To his surprise, the executer was able to understand him anyway. A small sphere came out of the wall and hovered over Daved. The sphere seemed to absorb all of his injuries. When it was done, it vanished, and Daved sat up, stunned but completely healed.
****************************************************************
"Hans! Hans, wake up." Hans head shot up with a jerk. "Hans you idiot, you fell asleep at the computer."
Hans sheepishly looked around him. "I must have fallen asleep while reading history last night."
"What where you reading ?" Asked Rodens, trying to make conversation.
"I was just reading how this place was discovered one thousand years ago."
"No kidding. Not a very exciting story, is it?"
"No, I guess not, but I like it anyways. You remembered to turn the heat down?" Rodens nodded, and the two walked in silence as Hans thought. That had been one thousand and twenty three years ago to be exact. Since that time, Haket and his friends had been taught many things by the teacher. Although the room Haket was in stretched on for as far as the eye could see, the teacher told them of a secret passageway which led into a huge underground city, big enough to rival any of today's Metropolises. The artificial light and environment made many parts of it look and feel like a forest, or a grassy field. There were plenty of giant buildings also. The whole city was filled with computers and other technology. A ceiling existed about half a kilometer above the ground, and the artificial environment made it look just like the sky. The computer was able to make food, weapons, and in fact it could synthesize just about anything. Haket and his friends, (of whom incidentally there was an equal number of men as women) never left the city from the day they came into it. Their descendents followed suit. The Coler mountains remained unsettled and so nobody else discovered the city.
(Although now the Coler Mountains were no longer part of the country of Gowron. They were ceded after to a war to Durant, and Durant in turn was conquered by Grarap.)
The teacher had taught Haket and his descendents everything, from how to work the computers, to astronomy, geography, history, and everything else. Unfortunately, the dwellers of this underground fortress were somewhat Xenophobic, and although they watched the whole world through the monitors, they avoided contact. That is why they gave themselves the name, "The Watchers".
Showing posts with label Watchers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Watchers. Show all posts
Monday, December 27, 2004
The Watchers Chapter 2
Foreign Policy
IN THE TENTH YEAR OF RECAB, KING OF DISHON
Hans opened the door to the observation room.
In the underground city, food was replicated by computers, as well as anything else someone might desire. Therefore, there was no need for anyone to work, but many did anyway. For those who loved science, like Dabrow, there was simply no substitute for the joy of finding out something through experimentation that the Teacher did not know. Some liked to write stories, and add them to the vast files of literature. Many of the people who chose to work were like Hans however. They were simply fascinated by the outside world. The observation room was filled with monitor screens from which many things could be observed.
At first, there had not been enough monitors for everyone who wished to observe, but then the Executor simply replicated more. Many of the rooms in the underground city had been turned into observation rooms.
Hans took a seat by his monitor. "Display a list of all wars going on now," he commanded. The monitor displayed a list of ten wars going on across the planet of Fabulae. Hans's jaw dropped in surprise when he noticed Calet was involved in a civil war. "Show events that led to the civil war in Calet." Hans watched fascinated as his monitor showed Polad and Miktesh arguing.
Hans had soon seen enough to guess why the war had started. "Display Miktesh at present time," he commanded. The monitor showed Miktesh marching with his troops. A map showed that they were heading to Agriola, Calet's official storehouse of food grown by the farmers. Each farmer in Calet had to give up five percent of their harvest as taxes. His interest growing, Hans asked to see the forces of Polad. Several of Polad's armies where also in a march to Agriola. Having the teacher compare speed and distance of the opposing armies, Hans saw it was very likely Miktesh would get to Agriola first.
Hans then told the computer to display Polad. Polad was discussing strategy with his generals. Hans smiled at his luck in being able to see Polad at such an opportune time and leaned back in his chair to watch. "Finally," said Polad, "Dabine will lead the-." The picture of Polad faded off the screen. It then reappeared briefly, before it faded away again.
"What's going on?" Hans wondered aloud.
"Unknown" the Teacher replied.
Hans turned to look at his good friend, Rodens. His screen was also blank. "Are you having the same problems I am?"
"If you mean your monitor suddenly went blank for no reason, yes," answered Rodens.
"Well what could have caused it?" Hans asked.
"The only thing I can think of would be the satellite malfunctioning," speculated Rodens. "The only monitors in this room that went blank were those displaying current events."
The satellite orbited Fabulae, and it was from this satellite that The Watchers were able to see everything on the planet. Rodens instructed the computer to show the satellite's activity for the last ten minutes.
The first two minutes were rather boring, as it just showed the satellite sitting out in space. Then, a blue light appeared briefly, and then vanished. Hans opened his mouth to ask the Teacher a question, but Rodens quickly reached over and placed his hand over Hans's mouth. "Wait until the whole thing is done." The blue light returned one minute later, then it came again thirty seconds after that. All too quickly it developed into a steady flow of blue light starting from the satellite and going to Fabulae. Then, about a minute before the monitor was supposed to stop, the picture faded out.
"What caused the blue light?" Rodens asked. The monitor showed a large meteor hitting the satellite. The satellite spun around several times, as the meteor went straight on its course unaltered. The satellite eventually corrected itself, and maneuvered back into its original position. A small blue light flashed across its exterior. Then the monitor displayed two maps of the satellites interior, before and after it was hit, and the changed parts were highlighted in red.
Across the city, hundreds of others were discovering the same thing.
*****************************************************************************
"By now, all of you have heard about the meteor." Bakes spoke at a meeting of all The Watchers. The teacher had taught The Watchers about many different forms of government, and The Watchers had agreed to use democracy. When Bakes was done explaining the problem, they would debate it for a while, and then vote on a solution. Bakes had dedicated his whole life to studying the computers, and was able to describe the problem most intelligently.
"I won't bore you with the details, but essentially the information from the satellite is being sent in a slightly different form. A small adjustment on our receptors could easily allow us to receive the information again just like we did before. The problem is that the new form the information is sent in unfortunately causes the mountains to heat up. With in weeks, the temperature of the Coler mountains will become fifty degrees Celsius. Obviously, all the Icelers are going to die much before them."
A small tinge of panic went through Hans. The Icelers were far from the savage warriors Haket had encountered one thousand years ago. Since that time, they had evolved into a peaceful culture that was bursting with creativity.
"As you know, the temperature in the Colers is usually around negative forty, with a record high of negative thirty in the past one hundred years. When the satellite was damaged, the temperature was negative forty four. Since then the temperature has gone up at roughly one degree every four hours. The temperature right now is negative thirty nine. We have until the temperature gets to Zero to save all the Icelers."
"Our options, gentlemen, are limited. As you know, the teacher has hidden some information from us for an unknown reason. The two we've found out about so far are: The origin of this city, and space travel. Therefor we obviously can not fly up to the satellite and repair it. It is also impossible to fix the satellite from the city."
A voice shouted out from the crowd, "Couldn't we develop space travel without the teachers help?"
"Undoubtable, however not much research has been put into space travel because," Bakess paued to think, "while we have no need of it. We Watchers seldom leave the city. In retrospect, that was obviously a mistake, however, with the time we have until the Icelers are destroyed, we can not possibly develop space travel to the point where we could fix the satellite from our ship."
"We can, however shut off the satellite completely from our city. If, someday, we develop to the point where the satellite can be fixed, we can turn it back on again." The were several angry shouts from the crowd. "Please, please, remember I'm only listing off all the options, I have yet to endorse any of them." The crowd quieted down, and Bakes continued.
"We also can transport the Icelers to a colder climate, via ships the executor can replicate. Of course, if we did this, we would try to fly the ships through mostly unpopulated areas, but it would be impossible to avoid detection completely."
"One final option has been proposed. We give half of the city to the Icelers. The artificial temperature can be lowered to accommodate them, and we would be co-citizens with them."
Bakess left the platform, never one for making conclusions, and the President for that year, Jistap, went to the podium. "After a time of debate, we will vote on the presented options. As always, new options may be introduced at this time too."
"In that case Mr. President, I have another option for you." All eyes turned to Rodens as he stood up out of his seat.
"You may speak."
"Thank you." Rodens, standing near the front of the crowd, turned around, as the majority of people where behind him. The computer stopped amplifying the voices from the front, and instead turned on Rodens' voice. Since most of the population was at the meeting, the room was the biggest in the city, and so few could see Rodens, but all could hear him. "I like the Icelers, and wish the best for their safety." Rodens began. "However, before we help others we must look out for ourselves first. This meteor incident was in no way," Rodens paused for emphasis, "no way our fault. We have absolutely no responsibility for helping the Icelers. Now I'd like to help them as much as anybody, however our first duty is to care for ourselves before we start messing in the affairs of others. We can't play world policeman, and do what we think is right in every situation. We have to let the Icelers look after themselves. I propose we don't risk detection, we don't turn our city into snow land, and we don't shut off our only link to the outside world. We are in no way responsible, and I propose we simply don't interfere."
Hans could hardly believe his ears. Not that Rodens would say something like that, Hans new Rodens well and he knew his views. The fact that they had completely different political beliefs had failed to stop their friendship. No, what Hans couldn't believe was the vigorous applauding Rodens had received.
Jistap looked out uneasily at the crowd. It was clear he was not in favor of the idea. "Your option will be added to the list. Thank you." Rodens nodded and sat down. "Any other comments." There where hundreds of thousands of people in the city, and they all wanted to get their two cents in, so after a long night of debate, the meeting was adjourned. It would ordinarily have been scheduled at the same time tomorrow, but because of the urgency of the issue, it was scheduled in the morning, barely long enough for everyone to get eight hours sleep. Fortunately, thanks to super elevators, travel time back and forth to the meeting hall was not a factor.
Rodens was getting ready for bed when he heard a knock on the door. "Who is it?"
"It's me" Rodens recognized the voice of Hans, and pressed a button, causing the door to swing open.
"Hello Hans, what do you want?"
"Oh I just came over to talk. You were quite popular at that meeting."
"Ideas that look out for the common man are always popular. This city needs to focus on it's own, not worry about every thing that goes wrong in the world."
"While I can't say I didn't expect you to stand up and say what you did, but I still don't understand how you could just sit back and relax while all those Icelers are killed."
"Hans! Hans! Let me reiterate. It grieves me that the Icelers are in there present condition, but theres just nothing we can do about it."
"There's plenty we can do. We can-"
"Yes, yes I know. I heard the proposed options. But Hans, think about us. No matter what we do, whether we shut off the satellite, turn half the city into a frozen land, or let the whole world investigate the Coler mountains to see why these flying machines are coming out of it, life in the city is never going to be the same." Rodens could see that he was failing to convince Hans. "Hans, listen to me. We have to put the Watchers first. There's nothing wrong with that."
"What about the Icelers. They are sentient beings too. Their brains are almost identical to ours in function. We have the ability to save them, shouldn't we?"
"Ideally yes, but it isn't just as easy as snapping our fingers and their safe."
"Alright then, lets undergo a little hardship to help them, it's worth it."
"No, it's not. They're not our responsibility. There's nothing wrong with putting the Watchers first. It's them or us."
Hans took deep breath and blew it out. "I've never been able to understand your thoughts."
"Nor I yours. Have a good nights sleep."
IN THE TENTH YEAR OF RECAB, KING OF DISHON
Hans opened the door to the observation room.
In the underground city, food was replicated by computers, as well as anything else someone might desire. Therefore, there was no need for anyone to work, but many did anyway. For those who loved science, like Dabrow, there was simply no substitute for the joy of finding out something through experimentation that the Teacher did not know. Some liked to write stories, and add them to the vast files of literature. Many of the people who chose to work were like Hans however. They were simply fascinated by the outside world. The observation room was filled with monitor screens from which many things could be observed.
At first, there had not been enough monitors for everyone who wished to observe, but then the Executor simply replicated more. Many of the rooms in the underground city had been turned into observation rooms.
Hans took a seat by his monitor. "Display a list of all wars going on now," he commanded. The monitor displayed a list of ten wars going on across the planet of Fabulae. Hans's jaw dropped in surprise when he noticed Calet was involved in a civil war. "Show events that led to the civil war in Calet." Hans watched fascinated as his monitor showed Polad and Miktesh arguing.
Hans had soon seen enough to guess why the war had started. "Display Miktesh at present time," he commanded. The monitor showed Miktesh marching with his troops. A map showed that they were heading to Agriola, Calet's official storehouse of food grown by the farmers. Each farmer in Calet had to give up five percent of their harvest as taxes. His interest growing, Hans asked to see the forces of Polad. Several of Polad's armies where also in a march to Agriola. Having the teacher compare speed and distance of the opposing armies, Hans saw it was very likely Miktesh would get to Agriola first.
Hans then told the computer to display Polad. Polad was discussing strategy with his generals. Hans smiled at his luck in being able to see Polad at such an opportune time and leaned back in his chair to watch. "Finally," said Polad, "Dabine will lead the-." The picture of Polad faded off the screen. It then reappeared briefly, before it faded away again.
"What's going on?" Hans wondered aloud.
"Unknown" the Teacher replied.
Hans turned to look at his good friend, Rodens. His screen was also blank. "Are you having the same problems I am?"
"If you mean your monitor suddenly went blank for no reason, yes," answered Rodens.
"Well what could have caused it?" Hans asked.
"The only thing I can think of would be the satellite malfunctioning," speculated Rodens. "The only monitors in this room that went blank were those displaying current events."
The satellite orbited Fabulae, and it was from this satellite that The Watchers were able to see everything on the planet. Rodens instructed the computer to show the satellite's activity for the last ten minutes.
The first two minutes were rather boring, as it just showed the satellite sitting out in space. Then, a blue light appeared briefly, and then vanished. Hans opened his mouth to ask the Teacher a question, but Rodens quickly reached over and placed his hand over Hans's mouth. "Wait until the whole thing is done." The blue light returned one minute later, then it came again thirty seconds after that. All too quickly it developed into a steady flow of blue light starting from the satellite and going to Fabulae. Then, about a minute before the monitor was supposed to stop, the picture faded out.
"What caused the blue light?" Rodens asked. The monitor showed a large meteor hitting the satellite. The satellite spun around several times, as the meteor went straight on its course unaltered. The satellite eventually corrected itself, and maneuvered back into its original position. A small blue light flashed across its exterior. Then the monitor displayed two maps of the satellites interior, before and after it was hit, and the changed parts were highlighted in red.
Across the city, hundreds of others were discovering the same thing.
*****************************************************************************
"By now, all of you have heard about the meteor." Bakes spoke at a meeting of all The Watchers. The teacher had taught The Watchers about many different forms of government, and The Watchers had agreed to use democracy. When Bakes was done explaining the problem, they would debate it for a while, and then vote on a solution. Bakes had dedicated his whole life to studying the computers, and was able to describe the problem most intelligently.
"I won't bore you with the details, but essentially the information from the satellite is being sent in a slightly different form. A small adjustment on our receptors could easily allow us to receive the information again just like we did before. The problem is that the new form the information is sent in unfortunately causes the mountains to heat up. With in weeks, the temperature of the Coler mountains will become fifty degrees Celsius. Obviously, all the Icelers are going to die much before them."
A small tinge of panic went through Hans. The Icelers were far from the savage warriors Haket had encountered one thousand years ago. Since that time, they had evolved into a peaceful culture that was bursting with creativity.
"As you know, the temperature in the Colers is usually around negative forty, with a record high of negative thirty in the past one hundred years. When the satellite was damaged, the temperature was negative forty four. Since then the temperature has gone up at roughly one degree every four hours. The temperature right now is negative thirty nine. We have until the temperature gets to Zero to save all the Icelers."
"Our options, gentlemen, are limited. As you know, the teacher has hidden some information from us for an unknown reason. The two we've found out about so far are: The origin of this city, and space travel. Therefor we obviously can not fly up to the satellite and repair it. It is also impossible to fix the satellite from the city."
A voice shouted out from the crowd, "Couldn't we develop space travel without the teachers help?"
"Undoubtable, however not much research has been put into space travel because," Bakess paued to think, "while we have no need of it. We Watchers seldom leave the city. In retrospect, that was obviously a mistake, however, with the time we have until the Icelers are destroyed, we can not possibly develop space travel to the point where we could fix the satellite from our ship."
"We can, however shut off the satellite completely from our city. If, someday, we develop to the point where the satellite can be fixed, we can turn it back on again." The were several angry shouts from the crowd. "Please, please, remember I'm only listing off all the options, I have yet to endorse any of them." The crowd quieted down, and Bakes continued.
"We also can transport the Icelers to a colder climate, via ships the executor can replicate. Of course, if we did this, we would try to fly the ships through mostly unpopulated areas, but it would be impossible to avoid detection completely."
"One final option has been proposed. We give half of the city to the Icelers. The artificial temperature can be lowered to accommodate them, and we would be co-citizens with them."
Bakess left the platform, never one for making conclusions, and the President for that year, Jistap, went to the podium. "After a time of debate, we will vote on the presented options. As always, new options may be introduced at this time too."
"In that case Mr. President, I have another option for you." All eyes turned to Rodens as he stood up out of his seat.
"You may speak."
"Thank you." Rodens, standing near the front of the crowd, turned around, as the majority of people where behind him. The computer stopped amplifying the voices from the front, and instead turned on Rodens' voice. Since most of the population was at the meeting, the room was the biggest in the city, and so few could see Rodens, but all could hear him. "I like the Icelers, and wish the best for their safety." Rodens began. "However, before we help others we must look out for ourselves first. This meteor incident was in no way," Rodens paused for emphasis, "no way our fault. We have absolutely no responsibility for helping the Icelers. Now I'd like to help them as much as anybody, however our first duty is to care for ourselves before we start messing in the affairs of others. We can't play world policeman, and do what we think is right in every situation. We have to let the Icelers look after themselves. I propose we don't risk detection, we don't turn our city into snow land, and we don't shut off our only link to the outside world. We are in no way responsible, and I propose we simply don't interfere."
Hans could hardly believe his ears. Not that Rodens would say something like that, Hans new Rodens well and he knew his views. The fact that they had completely different political beliefs had failed to stop their friendship. No, what Hans couldn't believe was the vigorous applauding Rodens had received.
Jistap looked out uneasily at the crowd. It was clear he was not in favor of the idea. "Your option will be added to the list. Thank you." Rodens nodded and sat down. "Any other comments." There where hundreds of thousands of people in the city, and they all wanted to get their two cents in, so after a long night of debate, the meeting was adjourned. It would ordinarily have been scheduled at the same time tomorrow, but because of the urgency of the issue, it was scheduled in the morning, barely long enough for everyone to get eight hours sleep. Fortunately, thanks to super elevators, travel time back and forth to the meeting hall was not a factor.
Rodens was getting ready for bed when he heard a knock on the door. "Who is it?"
"It's me" Rodens recognized the voice of Hans, and pressed a button, causing the door to swing open.
"Hello Hans, what do you want?"
"Oh I just came over to talk. You were quite popular at that meeting."
"Ideas that look out for the common man are always popular. This city needs to focus on it's own, not worry about every thing that goes wrong in the world."
"While I can't say I didn't expect you to stand up and say what you did, but I still don't understand how you could just sit back and relax while all those Icelers are killed."
"Hans! Hans! Let me reiterate. It grieves me that the Icelers are in there present condition, but theres just nothing we can do about it."
"There's plenty we can do. We can-"
"Yes, yes I know. I heard the proposed options. But Hans, think about us. No matter what we do, whether we shut off the satellite, turn half the city into a frozen land, or let the whole world investigate the Coler mountains to see why these flying machines are coming out of it, life in the city is never going to be the same." Rodens could see that he was failing to convince Hans. "Hans, listen to me. We have to put the Watchers first. There's nothing wrong with that."
"What about the Icelers. They are sentient beings too. Their brains are almost identical to ours in function. We have the ability to save them, shouldn't we?"
"Ideally yes, but it isn't just as easy as snapping our fingers and their safe."
"Alright then, lets undergo a little hardship to help them, it's worth it."
"No, it's not. They're not our responsibility. There's nothing wrong with putting the Watchers first. It's them or us."
Hans took deep breath and blew it out. "I've never been able to understand your thoughts."
"Nor I yours. Have a good nights sleep."
The Watchers Chapter 3
IN THE TENTH YEAR OF RECAB, KING OF DISHON
"The five hundred twenty six thousand, six hundred seventy second meeting of The Watchers will come to order. I am president for the year, Jistap. The purpose of this meeting is to vote on the prediscussed options for handling the Iceler situation. Option one is to convert our city so the Icelers can also inhabit it. Option two is to transport the Icelers to a colder climate via our ships. Option three is to shut off the satellite. Option four is to," Jistap grimaced, and read the last option with a disgusted tone, "do nothing, and let the Icelers die." Jistap had changed the wording of the last option, which originally read, "Let the Icelers handle this themselves." Many of The Watchers applauded for option four. "The choices will remain displayed on the many monitors located around the room, while each of you types in your vote on your ballet."
It had been two days since the memorable meeting where Bakes had first introduced the Iceler problem. Since then, debates had raged furiously in the lengthy meetings that were to follow. Only the fact that people were so sick of talking about the subject after the meetings kept it from splitting the city. During those days, Hans had even made two speeches at the meeting, both in favor of helping the Icelers by any means necessary. To his frustration, however, he felt like the message had fallen on deaf ears. The mind of the people seemed to be to let the Icelers die.
"All the votes have been sent in" said Jistap. Hans put his head down in frustration. He knew how the people felt. For the first two days he had hoped he might be able to change their minds, but he had given up all hope now. For the first time in his life, he felt ashamed to be a Watcher. "Option two has won. The Icelers will be transported to a colder climate." Amidst the boos and hisses, Hans stared at the front of the room in disbelief. Slowly, a broad smile broke over his face. Next he began to laugh with delight, he tried to stop himself but he could not.
Rodens who was sitting next to Hans, at his left, said quietly in disbelief "That's not right. That can't be right." He revoiced his opinion with more volume. "That can't be right!" He wasn't heard over the commotion present. He stood up and shouted "Mr. President, it's not right! Something is wrong, that's not how the vote went!" A hush went over the crowd as they stared at Rodens in amazement at his audacity. Everyone waited for Jistap to answer.
"Rodens, I can assure you that is indeed how the vote went. You are acting out of order. Please sit down." As the look on Rodens' face changed, Hans could tell he was slowly realizing what he was doing, having before acted just out of impulse. He slowly sat down, still looking somewhat confused.
"Now," said Jistap, "on to the business of a leader. I nominate Hans to lead the mission, based on his reliability, honesty, virtue, and the fact that he is one of the most vocal supporters of this idea."
Hans broke out in cold sweat. He had never expected anything like this to happen before, and the stares of everyone around him made him feel somewhat self-conscious. "I accept your nomination," he hoarsely replied.
It took another half a day before the nominations were completed. When the vote came through, Hans won. Again Hans was surprised by the outcome, since he wasn't as popular or as well known as many of the people nominated.
"Hans has won." Jistap voice boomed over the speakers. "Anyone who wishes to volunteer, please meet Hans at the front of the room. This meeting is officially dismissed." The shock of winning caused second thoughts to fly through Hans' mind. Could he make all the decisions necessary? Could he take all the pressure? Hans waved the thoughts away, not allowing himself to get worried by thinking about them.
As Hans made his way to the front of his room, he was starred at by about everyone he passed. A few people congratulated him, others just gave him hateful looks.
At the front of the room, Hans was introduced to many volunteers, two hundred and thirty seven all together. Hans didn't bother writing their names down, because he knew the Teacher would remember them for him. To his surprise, one of the volunteers was Rodens.
"I never expected to see you volunteer. Have you changed your mind?"
"Hardly," grunted Rodens, as he and Hans walked through the city. "I'm going to be watching you. I'm going to make sure you don't jeopardize our city any more then you have to. I'm going to make sure you don't do anything the rest of the city wouldn't approve of, because if you do their going to hear about it."
Hans smiled. "It almost sounds like you don't trust me."
Rodens stopped walking and turned to face Hans, his face an accurate mirror of the anger inside him. "The vote was wrong, something went wrong. Do you honestly think that a majority of the people voted to save the Icelers? Almost everyone I talked to was against it."
"Oh now lets not be sore losers. Your proposition was defeated in the good old democratic way. You just-"
"Hans the vote was rigged. It was fixed. It was fake, phoney, pretend, mock, meaningless! Are you so conceited to believe you actually were voted leader? There were many more qualified people running. There were scores of people who were more popular. You're just an unknown guy who happens to favor shipping the Icelers all over the whole damn planet to save them." Rodens face was bright red with anger, but he quickly calmed down to his normal color after he finished talking. "I'm sorry. I just can't believe this is happening. That vote can't be right."
"It's okay. I understand your frustration." Hans answered without really thinking about what he was saying. His mind was racing through all sorts of possibilities.
Jistap sipped a cup of tea, as he watched leaned back in his chair and read a book. He was quit comfortable when Hans burst through the door. "Hans," Jistap said as he rose to his feet. "What can I do for you?"
"What the hell is going on?"
"I beg your pardon."
"The vote, it was fixed wasn't it. Option four really won didn't it. You lied to us."
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're-"
"I'm not done yet," growled Hans. "I didn't win the vote either. That part was also fixed wasn't it."
"Hans calm down! Have you lost your senses? What is this nonsense your spouting?"
Hans looked straight into the eyes of Jistap. "Don't even try that. I'm in no mood for your games." His voice had an unusual hardness to it.
Jistap sighed and shook his head in frustration. "All right then, shut up and follow me." Jistap pressed a button on his wall before he left. Hans was about to ask him what he was doing, but before he could, Jistap said, "Don't ask. Just shut up and follow me."
Jistap lead Hans to the super elevators. He instructed the Executor to send both Hans and him to location seven. Hans was very curious as to what location seven was, since when people wanted to be taken, they usually identified their destination by name, not by code. The super elevator zoomed Hans and Jistap to a room Hans had ever seen before. Several other people were in the room.
"Alright Hans, you want answers, I'll give you answers."
Hans looked at Jistap. "Where are we?"
"Were in a secret meeting room. By pressing that button on my wall before I left, I summoned my team here. Your right, we did alter the vote. Originally it was overwhelmingly for option four, letting the Icelers die."
"You can't do that," stammered Hans. "This is a democracy. The opinion of the public must be the law."
One of the members of the "team" stood up. Hans recognized him as Bakes. "Are you saying you would rather let all the Icelers die then deceive a few people. Hans were talking about hundreds of lives here. The Icelers in these mountains number about two thousand."
Hans felt dizzy. He slowly sat down in a chair, and held his head in his hands. "There's got to be another way."
"There's not," Jistap replied. "You know as well as I do, our people want to wash their hands of the Icelers."
"But where do you draw the line?" Hans asked, looking up. "Once you start doing this, you could twist the vote every time, to make sure your will is always implemented."
"Damn it Hans," Bakes shouted, "We're not talking about drawing a line. We're talking about saving two thousand innocent lives."
"Listen, Hans," said Jistap, "We made the vote so you would win. We did that because we knew you could trust you. We knew that you would do everything you can to save lives, to save the honor of your people. We've taken a lot of risks to bring you here, to tell your our secret. You realize if you tell anyone about this the vote will be redone, and you know as well as I do, that would result in the death of every single Iceler in these mountains."
Hans lowered his head in thought. If he joined up with Jistap and his team, he was essentially destroying the democracy he loved so much, but if he exposed them, the Icelers would die. "Alright", he said, "alright, I'll join you, on one condition. After this Iceler problem is solved, we go back to being a democracy."
"You've got a deal" said Jistap as they shook hands. "You've got a deal."
"The five hundred twenty six thousand, six hundred seventy second meeting of The Watchers will come to order. I am president for the year, Jistap. The purpose of this meeting is to vote on the prediscussed options for handling the Iceler situation. Option one is to convert our city so the Icelers can also inhabit it. Option two is to transport the Icelers to a colder climate via our ships. Option three is to shut off the satellite. Option four is to," Jistap grimaced, and read the last option with a disgusted tone, "do nothing, and let the Icelers die." Jistap had changed the wording of the last option, which originally read, "Let the Icelers handle this themselves." Many of The Watchers applauded for option four. "The choices will remain displayed on the many monitors located around the room, while each of you types in your vote on your ballet."
It had been two days since the memorable meeting where Bakes had first introduced the Iceler problem. Since then, debates had raged furiously in the lengthy meetings that were to follow. Only the fact that people were so sick of talking about the subject after the meetings kept it from splitting the city. During those days, Hans had even made two speeches at the meeting, both in favor of helping the Icelers by any means necessary. To his frustration, however, he felt like the message had fallen on deaf ears. The mind of the people seemed to be to let the Icelers die.
"All the votes have been sent in" said Jistap. Hans put his head down in frustration. He knew how the people felt. For the first two days he had hoped he might be able to change their minds, but he had given up all hope now. For the first time in his life, he felt ashamed to be a Watcher. "Option two has won. The Icelers will be transported to a colder climate." Amidst the boos and hisses, Hans stared at the front of the room in disbelief. Slowly, a broad smile broke over his face. Next he began to laugh with delight, he tried to stop himself but he could not.
Rodens who was sitting next to Hans, at his left, said quietly in disbelief "That's not right. That can't be right." He revoiced his opinion with more volume. "That can't be right!" He wasn't heard over the commotion present. He stood up and shouted "Mr. President, it's not right! Something is wrong, that's not how the vote went!" A hush went over the crowd as they stared at Rodens in amazement at his audacity. Everyone waited for Jistap to answer.
"Rodens, I can assure you that is indeed how the vote went. You are acting out of order. Please sit down." As the look on Rodens' face changed, Hans could tell he was slowly realizing what he was doing, having before acted just out of impulse. He slowly sat down, still looking somewhat confused.
"Now," said Jistap, "on to the business of a leader. I nominate Hans to lead the mission, based on his reliability, honesty, virtue, and the fact that he is one of the most vocal supporters of this idea."
Hans broke out in cold sweat. He had never expected anything like this to happen before, and the stares of everyone around him made him feel somewhat self-conscious. "I accept your nomination," he hoarsely replied.
It took another half a day before the nominations were completed. When the vote came through, Hans won. Again Hans was surprised by the outcome, since he wasn't as popular or as well known as many of the people nominated.
"Hans has won." Jistap voice boomed over the speakers. "Anyone who wishes to volunteer, please meet Hans at the front of the room. This meeting is officially dismissed." The shock of winning caused second thoughts to fly through Hans' mind. Could he make all the decisions necessary? Could he take all the pressure? Hans waved the thoughts away, not allowing himself to get worried by thinking about them.
As Hans made his way to the front of his room, he was starred at by about everyone he passed. A few people congratulated him, others just gave him hateful looks.
At the front of the room, Hans was introduced to many volunteers, two hundred and thirty seven all together. Hans didn't bother writing their names down, because he knew the Teacher would remember them for him. To his surprise, one of the volunteers was Rodens.
"I never expected to see you volunteer. Have you changed your mind?"
"Hardly," grunted Rodens, as he and Hans walked through the city. "I'm going to be watching you. I'm going to make sure you don't jeopardize our city any more then you have to. I'm going to make sure you don't do anything the rest of the city wouldn't approve of, because if you do their going to hear about it."
Hans smiled. "It almost sounds like you don't trust me."
Rodens stopped walking and turned to face Hans, his face an accurate mirror of the anger inside him. "The vote was wrong, something went wrong. Do you honestly think that a majority of the people voted to save the Icelers? Almost everyone I talked to was against it."
"Oh now lets not be sore losers. Your proposition was defeated in the good old democratic way. You just-"
"Hans the vote was rigged. It was fixed. It was fake, phoney, pretend, mock, meaningless! Are you so conceited to believe you actually were voted leader? There were many more qualified people running. There were scores of people who were more popular. You're just an unknown guy who happens to favor shipping the Icelers all over the whole damn planet to save them." Rodens face was bright red with anger, but he quickly calmed down to his normal color after he finished talking. "I'm sorry. I just can't believe this is happening. That vote can't be right."
"It's okay. I understand your frustration." Hans answered without really thinking about what he was saying. His mind was racing through all sorts of possibilities.
Jistap sipped a cup of tea, as he watched leaned back in his chair and read a book. He was quit comfortable when Hans burst through the door. "Hans," Jistap said as he rose to his feet. "What can I do for you?"
"What the hell is going on?"
"I beg your pardon."
"The vote, it was fixed wasn't it. Option four really won didn't it. You lied to us."
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're-"
"I'm not done yet," growled Hans. "I didn't win the vote either. That part was also fixed wasn't it."
"Hans calm down! Have you lost your senses? What is this nonsense your spouting?"
Hans looked straight into the eyes of Jistap. "Don't even try that. I'm in no mood for your games." His voice had an unusual hardness to it.
Jistap sighed and shook his head in frustration. "All right then, shut up and follow me." Jistap pressed a button on his wall before he left. Hans was about to ask him what he was doing, but before he could, Jistap said, "Don't ask. Just shut up and follow me."
Jistap lead Hans to the super elevators. He instructed the Executor to send both Hans and him to location seven. Hans was very curious as to what location seven was, since when people wanted to be taken, they usually identified their destination by name, not by code. The super elevator zoomed Hans and Jistap to a room Hans had ever seen before. Several other people were in the room.
"Alright Hans, you want answers, I'll give you answers."
Hans looked at Jistap. "Where are we?"
"Were in a secret meeting room. By pressing that button on my wall before I left, I summoned my team here. Your right, we did alter the vote. Originally it was overwhelmingly for option four, letting the Icelers die."
"You can't do that," stammered Hans. "This is a democracy. The opinion of the public must be the law."
One of the members of the "team" stood up. Hans recognized him as Bakes. "Are you saying you would rather let all the Icelers die then deceive a few people. Hans were talking about hundreds of lives here. The Icelers in these mountains number about two thousand."
Hans felt dizzy. He slowly sat down in a chair, and held his head in his hands. "There's got to be another way."
"There's not," Jistap replied. "You know as well as I do, our people want to wash their hands of the Icelers."
"But where do you draw the line?" Hans asked, looking up. "Once you start doing this, you could twist the vote every time, to make sure your will is always implemented."
"Damn it Hans," Bakes shouted, "We're not talking about drawing a line. We're talking about saving two thousand innocent lives."
"Listen, Hans," said Jistap, "We made the vote so you would win. We did that because we knew you could trust you. We knew that you would do everything you can to save lives, to save the honor of your people. We've taken a lot of risks to bring you here, to tell your our secret. You realize if you tell anyone about this the vote will be redone, and you know as well as I do, that would result in the death of every single Iceler in these mountains."
Hans lowered his head in thought. If he joined up with Jistap and his team, he was essentially destroying the democracy he loved so much, but if he exposed them, the Icelers would die. "Alright", he said, "alright, I'll join you, on one condition. After this Iceler problem is solved, we go back to being a democracy."
"You've got a deal" said Jistap as they shook hands. "You've got a deal."
The Watchers Chapter 4
IN THE TENTH YEAR OF RECAB, KING OF DISHON
Hans looked at the fifteen men he had handpicked from the two hundred thirty seven volunteers. They were going to be the ambassadors to the Icelers. They were the ones who were going to explain to the Icelers who The Watchers were, what the problem was, and how The Watchers were going to help. Overcoming the language barrier between the Icelers and The Watchers was somewhat of a problem, but by no means difficult to overcome. At the time of Haket, both the Icelers and Haket's group spoke Caletian, but since each had been in isolation since that time, each developed their own offshoot of the language. Needless to say, both dialects were extremely similar, and with the help of the Teacher, little time was needed to learn the Icelers language.
"Alright, you all know your job," said Hans, "lets go." They began proceeding towards one of the many exits from the city. They were all dressed in appropriate clothing to combat the temperature.
"Hans, could I talk to you for a moment?"
Hans turned to see Rodens pushing his way through the ambassadors to get to him. Hans could guess what Rodens wanted. Rodens was angry about not being picked as an ambassador, claiming it was time Hans was not being observed by him. Hans had been very gentle in explaining the sensitivity of the project, which could only take the most enthusiastic and the best qualified, but Rodens didn't seem to understand. With the knowledge that Rodens' option really should have won the vote, Hans had treated what seemed to him like uncontrolled bigotry, with out getting upset.
"Hans, I need to talk to you," Rodens repeated his request.
"We've been through this before Rodens. Your not coming."
"No, it's not about that. It's about the vote."
"What?"
"May I see you in private to discuss the vote?"
"Rodens, now is not a good time. Can't you see we're about to start delicate negotiations here?"
"Hans I'm not waiting for you. You either talk to me now or your regret it. I will inform the people."
"What are you talking about?"
"I think you know what I'm talking about."
Hans heart beat rapidly. Could Rodens possibly know about the vote conspiracy. It was a chance Hans couldn't afford to take. The negotiations could wait five minutes.
Hans motioned with his hand for Rodens to follow him, and the two went down the hall and around a coroner, well out of sight and hearing of the fifteen. "What do you want to say?" Hans voice demanded an answer, a tone that was unnecessary since Rodens was more then willing to tell his story.
"Hans, you and I agree on very few things. The Iceler situation is no exception to that, but it is an issue that has created some strong feelings. I know what you are like when you feel strongly about something, and among other things you are very vocal and tend to be somewhat close minded." Hans did not view himself as being close minded at any time, but he decided not to say anything. The definition of an open mind was yet another thing that Hans and Rodens did not agree about.
"Lately, for the couple days you have demonstrated a tolerance unlike you. You no longer argue with me about the Icelers, but simply accept my view and even sometimes admit I might be partially right. Hans you look almost," Rodens paused as he searched for the right word, "guilty when we talk about the Icelers."
"At first I didn't think anything of it. Hans is just becoming a more well-rounded person, I told myself. Then one day I remembered that the last time you acted like you knew you were right was just before I yelled at you because I had been convinced the vote was fake. Just for fun, I had the monitor display that argument, and I noticed some things I hadn't before. When I was talking to you, I had been so involved in my little speech, I failed to notice how the expression on your face changed when I dictated my logic. Watching it on the monitor, I saw you lose your confidence. I didn't know what I'd find, but I decided to have the monitor track your movements after we parted. Well you made a beeline for Jistap's room, burst open the door, and everything after that has been classified by someone."
"You can imagine my surprise. After all, even though someone with the computer know how, such as Bakes, could classify something, it is forbidden by Watcher law. This allows little privacy, but it is a price we must pay to ensure that nothing dishonest is being done. That is the only reason I can think of to classify your conversation, to hide something dishonest. When I asked the teacher to display the next unclassified footage of you, you had just parted company with Jistap at the super elevator, looking more confused then you did before."
Hans looked straight at Rodens, fearing the inevitable complication to his plans, one that he now realized he should have seen coming. Rodens, after taking a deep breath, announced his fear was true. "You were talking about the vote, weren't you? The vote was fake, wasn't it?" Rodens voice rose as his face grew scarlet. "You knew the vote was fake, and you didn't do anything about it. Your in league with Jistap and his little henchmen aren't you?" Rodens stamped his foot down hard on the ground. "Damn it Hans! Damn you to Hell! Damn you! Damn you! Damn you! Damn you! Your destroying our democracy! Your destroying our fucking democracy to help those damn Icelers!" Hans opened his mouth to defend himself, but Rodens hand flew out across his face in rage. "Don't even talk to me Hans. You can go rot in hell." Rodens walked off, still talking. "Your through, I'm exposing you, Jistap, and every single other damn conspirator. If your cause was truly just, you wouldn't have to accomplish it by deceit."
"Rodens, I understand your frustration. It's so hard to know what's right sometimes, but if your work with me we can solve this problem together." Rodens kept walking, without giving the slightest indication that he had heard a word. "Rodens, I don't want to fight. Don't do this, we can work it out." Rodens walk broke into a run as he disappeared down the hallway. Hans sighed. "Executor, let me talk to Jistap."
After a minute, Jistap's voice came through the wall. "This is Jistap, what do you want?"
"This is Hans, are you alone?"
If Hans needed to talk in private, Jistap could guess why. His voice became very concerned. "Yes, why."
"Jistap, we've got a problem."
Rodens raced through the hall. He was in a maze of empty metal hallways, that led to several different exits from the city. A few more turns and he would be out of the exit wing, which incidentally was one of many in the city. Once he was out of the exit wing, there would be people everywhere and he could tell them all about the conspiracy.
Rodens felt betrayed. He had always considered Hans a friend, and never thought Hans would betray him like this. All along Hans had known what was really happening. Hans knew the injustice being done to him. His right to vote and to have his vote count had been snuffed out. He had been violated by the government. But now those who tried to kill democracy in favor of their own views would be punished.
Rodens rounded the next turn, to see Jistap standing there. Two guards were on each side of him, four in all. "Rodens we need to talk. I can't let you-"
Jistap's words were broken off. Rodens screamed in rage, "You! You did this!" Rodens pulled back his hand, curled it into a fist, and with great speed it headed towards Jistap's face. Rodens punch never connected, two of the guards tackled him.
Rodens struggled furiously against his opponents, but they held him to the ground. "Let me go!" he demanded. "I'm a private citizen! You can't do this to me! I've committed no crime!"
Jistap stepped forward. "No one's going to do anything to you Rodens. None of your rights will be violated, I just want to talk."
"Like hell they won't be, they already have been. You violated my rights when you fixed that vote. By all the rules of democracy my proposition should have won!"
"What I had to do was most unfortunate, but you and your kind forced me to do it. I couldn't let the Icelers die."
"Damn you man, who's more important? You were elected president of The Watchers, not the Icelers. Your first and foremost responsibility is to protect us, and you've destroyed us."
"I assure you Rodens, no permanent damage will be done to our democracy. Once the Icelers are safe, I and my compatriots will turn ourselves in."
Rodens, who had been dormant for some time now, tried once again to free himself, but to no avail. "Don't you see, the damage will already be done. For the first time in our history, you will have bended the will of the people for your own use. Your only opening the door for others to follow in the footsteps. You'll destroy us." Rodens said his last sentence desperately, hoping he could somehow convince Jistap.
"Rodens, I don't want to do this, but I'll do whatever it takes to save lives. You can either shut up about this or you can be locked up."
"You can't do that to me. I'm a private citizen."
"After what I've already done, do you think that's going to stop me?"
"If I figured it out, others will too. You can't imprison us all."
Jistap leaned forward until his face was inches away from Rodens'. For the first time in their conversation his expression became menacing. "Watch me."
Rodens spit in his face. "I'll never, never help you. If your cause was just, you wouldn't need to use dishonesty and trickery to accomplish it."
"It's easy to say that when your only looking out for yourself. When the only life you care about is your own, then you can say that. But we only had six and a half days to save the Icelers. Right now their are only two days left. We didn't have time to do much, and even less time to think. Looking out for yourself is always easy. It's looking out for others that's hard."
This short speech obviously had no effect on Rodens. His face became angrier then ever. "Go to hell, and take your self-righteousness with you. If you want to help others, then look at what your doing to me."
Jistap nodded to his four guards. "Take him away." He looked at Rodens compassionately. "You'll be released once this is all over."
As he was being dragged away, Rodens screamed back, "and Deka help you when I am!"
Rodens was taken by the super elevator to what was identified as location three. He found it to be a secret prison. No one was there except-
"Hans," stammered Rodens, "what are you doing here?" After he had recovered from his initial shock, he asked, "if time is so short, why aren't you leading that ambassador mission."
"There aren't that many of us, Rodens. I was the only one Jistap could reach whom he knew was alone."
"And why did he know you were alone? Because you warned him about me you fucking traitor. Hans, I was shocked when you betrayed me about the vote, but I'd never thought you'd do this to me."
Hans nodded to the guards, who threw Rodens into a cell. An energy field immediately materialized, trapping Rodens inside.
"Hans, I'm your friend. Don't do this to me. Hans, you can't do this to me."
"I'm sorry Rodens. You leave me no choice."
As Hans walked into the super elevator, Rodens said quietly, in a barely audible tone, "not you too Hans. Not you too."
Hans looked at the fifteen men he had handpicked from the two hundred thirty seven volunteers. They were going to be the ambassadors to the Icelers. They were the ones who were going to explain to the Icelers who The Watchers were, what the problem was, and how The Watchers were going to help. Overcoming the language barrier between the Icelers and The Watchers was somewhat of a problem, but by no means difficult to overcome. At the time of Haket, both the Icelers and Haket's group spoke Caletian, but since each had been in isolation since that time, each developed their own offshoot of the language. Needless to say, both dialects were extremely similar, and with the help of the Teacher, little time was needed to learn the Icelers language.
"Alright, you all know your job," said Hans, "lets go." They began proceeding towards one of the many exits from the city. They were all dressed in appropriate clothing to combat the temperature.
"Hans, could I talk to you for a moment?"
Hans turned to see Rodens pushing his way through the ambassadors to get to him. Hans could guess what Rodens wanted. Rodens was angry about not being picked as an ambassador, claiming it was time Hans was not being observed by him. Hans had been very gentle in explaining the sensitivity of the project, which could only take the most enthusiastic and the best qualified, but Rodens didn't seem to understand. With the knowledge that Rodens' option really should have won the vote, Hans had treated what seemed to him like uncontrolled bigotry, with out getting upset.
"Hans, I need to talk to you," Rodens repeated his request.
"We've been through this before Rodens. Your not coming."
"No, it's not about that. It's about the vote."
"What?"
"May I see you in private to discuss the vote?"
"Rodens, now is not a good time. Can't you see we're about to start delicate negotiations here?"
"Hans I'm not waiting for you. You either talk to me now or your regret it. I will inform the people."
"What are you talking about?"
"I think you know what I'm talking about."
Hans heart beat rapidly. Could Rodens possibly know about the vote conspiracy. It was a chance Hans couldn't afford to take. The negotiations could wait five minutes.
Hans motioned with his hand for Rodens to follow him, and the two went down the hall and around a coroner, well out of sight and hearing of the fifteen. "What do you want to say?" Hans voice demanded an answer, a tone that was unnecessary since Rodens was more then willing to tell his story.
"Hans, you and I agree on very few things. The Iceler situation is no exception to that, but it is an issue that has created some strong feelings. I know what you are like when you feel strongly about something, and among other things you are very vocal and tend to be somewhat close minded." Hans did not view himself as being close minded at any time, but he decided not to say anything. The definition of an open mind was yet another thing that Hans and Rodens did not agree about.
"Lately, for the couple days you have demonstrated a tolerance unlike you. You no longer argue with me about the Icelers, but simply accept my view and even sometimes admit I might be partially right. Hans you look almost," Rodens paused as he searched for the right word, "guilty when we talk about the Icelers."
"At first I didn't think anything of it. Hans is just becoming a more well-rounded person, I told myself. Then one day I remembered that the last time you acted like you knew you were right was just before I yelled at you because I had been convinced the vote was fake. Just for fun, I had the monitor display that argument, and I noticed some things I hadn't before. When I was talking to you, I had been so involved in my little speech, I failed to notice how the expression on your face changed when I dictated my logic. Watching it on the monitor, I saw you lose your confidence. I didn't know what I'd find, but I decided to have the monitor track your movements after we parted. Well you made a beeline for Jistap's room, burst open the door, and everything after that has been classified by someone."
"You can imagine my surprise. After all, even though someone with the computer know how, such as Bakes, could classify something, it is forbidden by Watcher law. This allows little privacy, but it is a price we must pay to ensure that nothing dishonest is being done. That is the only reason I can think of to classify your conversation, to hide something dishonest. When I asked the teacher to display the next unclassified footage of you, you had just parted company with Jistap at the super elevator, looking more confused then you did before."
Hans looked straight at Rodens, fearing the inevitable complication to his plans, one that he now realized he should have seen coming. Rodens, after taking a deep breath, announced his fear was true. "You were talking about the vote, weren't you? The vote was fake, wasn't it?" Rodens voice rose as his face grew scarlet. "You knew the vote was fake, and you didn't do anything about it. Your in league with Jistap and his little henchmen aren't you?" Rodens stamped his foot down hard on the ground. "Damn it Hans! Damn you to Hell! Damn you! Damn you! Damn you! Damn you! Your destroying our democracy! Your destroying our fucking democracy to help those damn Icelers!" Hans opened his mouth to defend himself, but Rodens hand flew out across his face in rage. "Don't even talk to me Hans. You can go rot in hell." Rodens walked off, still talking. "Your through, I'm exposing you, Jistap, and every single other damn conspirator. If your cause was truly just, you wouldn't have to accomplish it by deceit."
"Rodens, I understand your frustration. It's so hard to know what's right sometimes, but if your work with me we can solve this problem together." Rodens kept walking, without giving the slightest indication that he had heard a word. "Rodens, I don't want to fight. Don't do this, we can work it out." Rodens walk broke into a run as he disappeared down the hallway. Hans sighed. "Executor, let me talk to Jistap."
After a minute, Jistap's voice came through the wall. "This is Jistap, what do you want?"
"This is Hans, are you alone?"
If Hans needed to talk in private, Jistap could guess why. His voice became very concerned. "Yes, why."
"Jistap, we've got a problem."
Rodens raced through the hall. He was in a maze of empty metal hallways, that led to several different exits from the city. A few more turns and he would be out of the exit wing, which incidentally was one of many in the city. Once he was out of the exit wing, there would be people everywhere and he could tell them all about the conspiracy.
Rodens felt betrayed. He had always considered Hans a friend, and never thought Hans would betray him like this. All along Hans had known what was really happening. Hans knew the injustice being done to him. His right to vote and to have his vote count had been snuffed out. He had been violated by the government. But now those who tried to kill democracy in favor of their own views would be punished.
Rodens rounded the next turn, to see Jistap standing there. Two guards were on each side of him, four in all. "Rodens we need to talk. I can't let you-"
Jistap's words were broken off. Rodens screamed in rage, "You! You did this!" Rodens pulled back his hand, curled it into a fist, and with great speed it headed towards Jistap's face. Rodens punch never connected, two of the guards tackled him.
Rodens struggled furiously against his opponents, but they held him to the ground. "Let me go!" he demanded. "I'm a private citizen! You can't do this to me! I've committed no crime!"
Jistap stepped forward. "No one's going to do anything to you Rodens. None of your rights will be violated, I just want to talk."
"Like hell they won't be, they already have been. You violated my rights when you fixed that vote. By all the rules of democracy my proposition should have won!"
"What I had to do was most unfortunate, but you and your kind forced me to do it. I couldn't let the Icelers die."
"Damn you man, who's more important? You were elected president of The Watchers, not the Icelers. Your first and foremost responsibility is to protect us, and you've destroyed us."
"I assure you Rodens, no permanent damage will be done to our democracy. Once the Icelers are safe, I and my compatriots will turn ourselves in."
Rodens, who had been dormant for some time now, tried once again to free himself, but to no avail. "Don't you see, the damage will already be done. For the first time in our history, you will have bended the will of the people for your own use. Your only opening the door for others to follow in the footsteps. You'll destroy us." Rodens said his last sentence desperately, hoping he could somehow convince Jistap.
"Rodens, I don't want to do this, but I'll do whatever it takes to save lives. You can either shut up about this or you can be locked up."
"You can't do that to me. I'm a private citizen."
"After what I've already done, do you think that's going to stop me?"
"If I figured it out, others will too. You can't imprison us all."
Jistap leaned forward until his face was inches away from Rodens'. For the first time in their conversation his expression became menacing. "Watch me."
Rodens spit in his face. "I'll never, never help you. If your cause was just, you wouldn't need to use dishonesty and trickery to accomplish it."
"It's easy to say that when your only looking out for yourself. When the only life you care about is your own, then you can say that. But we only had six and a half days to save the Icelers. Right now their are only two days left. We didn't have time to do much, and even less time to think. Looking out for yourself is always easy. It's looking out for others that's hard."
This short speech obviously had no effect on Rodens. His face became angrier then ever. "Go to hell, and take your self-righteousness with you. If you want to help others, then look at what your doing to me."
Jistap nodded to his four guards. "Take him away." He looked at Rodens compassionately. "You'll be released once this is all over."
As he was being dragged away, Rodens screamed back, "and Deka help you when I am!"
Rodens was taken by the super elevator to what was identified as location three. He found it to be a secret prison. No one was there except-
"Hans," stammered Rodens, "what are you doing here?" After he had recovered from his initial shock, he asked, "if time is so short, why aren't you leading that ambassador mission."
"There aren't that many of us, Rodens. I was the only one Jistap could reach whom he knew was alone."
"And why did he know you were alone? Because you warned him about me you fucking traitor. Hans, I was shocked when you betrayed me about the vote, but I'd never thought you'd do this to me."
Hans nodded to the guards, who threw Rodens into a cell. An energy field immediately materialized, trapping Rodens inside.
"Hans, I'm your friend. Don't do this to me. Hans, you can't do this to me."
"I'm sorry Rodens. You leave me no choice."
As Hans walked into the super elevator, Rodens said quietly, in a barely audible tone, "not you too Hans. Not you too."
The Watchers Chapter 5
IN THE TENTH YEAR OF RECAB, KING OF DISHON
Hans stepped out of the city, followed by his ambassadors. Hans was wearing a light coat, and thin gloves. The Coler mountains had lost their bite, and were only mildly cold. In some places, where the sun shone hot and bright, the snow was already melting. In his hand, Hans held a small computer, that was pointing the way to the Iceler villiage. Hans followed the computer, and his ambassadors followed him.
Hans lead them for about a half a mile trek through the snow. After climbing a large hill, the group came upon the Iceler community. The sight was anything but a hopeful one. Many of the Iceler homes had collasped in the heat. Some of the Icelers themselves lay sprawled out on the ground, appearently suffering from the temperature. As soon as the Icelers saw Hans and his group, they reacted with fear, some running away, others preparing to fight. It was obvious they had never seen Humans before.
Hans, in preperation for this meeting, had previously programed several Iceler phrases into his computer. He recalled on of them onto the screen and read it. In Iceler it said, "Do not be afraid. We are on a mission of peace. We are here to help you." The Icelers calmed down. Many of them stopped running, and their shouting was decreased to a great degree. Hans recalled another phrase and read it. "It is hot isn't it?" He expected a response, but upon recieving none from the spellbound Icelers, he continued reading. "I am here to help. These mountains are heating up. Soon you will die. My people want to transport you to a place where it is cold, like this place used to be." When Hans had prepared his little speech, he was sure he would recieve a response at this point, but the Icelers wonder kept them from finding words, so Hans kept reading. "We have come to talk to you. We don't know your language well, so please forgive our inability to speak smoothly. If you wish, we will transport you to safety." An akward silence followed. Hans waved his hand as a signal to the ambassadors, who integrated themselves among the Icelers and began talking to them.
After fifteen minutes or so of this, Hans was approached by one of the Icelers, appearently the leader. He spoke to Hans, and the computer translated it. Hans read the screen, "you can help us?"
Hans responded, "yes", a word that had stayed the same in both languages.
Again the Iceler spoke, and his words were translated. "My people are dying. You must get them to a colder climate quickly."
In very poor Iceler, "you can count on us." The two men shook hands.
Little time was wasted on diplomatics, with the temperature raising rapidly. The Icelers were loaded into ships built by the executer. These ships were speciffically built to hold a large number of Icelers, and were kept at negative fifty degrees, except for the pilots cockpit. Once the destination was programmed into these ships, they practically flew themselve, but two pilots came along just in case. To avoid being seen by the rest of the planet, these ships flew high above the clouds, but unfortunately there were many creatures on Fabulae who could also fly that high.
Five ships were all the executer had to build since each was very big. Little time was wasted getting the Icelers aboard. Hans himself piloted one of the ships. The speed of the ships was such that the journey took only an hour.
In what seemed all to soon a time, Hans was saying good bye to the Iceler leader. In the short time they were together, the two had learned enough about eachothers langauge to be able to communicate somewhat smoothly.
"I must thank your people again," the leader said.
Hans smiled. "I'm just glad we could help. I think you'll be happy in your new enviroment."
"Yes, I think we will be. I wish our two species could live in the same enviroment. I really enjoyed getting to know you."
Hans turned a little red at the compliment. "I'll be back often to see you. I can always wear warm clothes."
The leader returned Hans smile. "Until then, take this to remember my people by." He handed Hans a piece of soft rock, a kind Hans had never seen before. It had been molded into a human figure. "We told stories and made pictures of your kind, but we didn't think you actually existed" explained the leader.
Hans gave the leader his scarf. "You can take this to remember me by."
The two stood in silence for a couple minutes, gazing out at the beautiful white ground which stretched out forever. Then the leader spoke. "My name is Mora. What is yours?"
"I am Hans."
In the distance, a voice called out. "Hans, lets get out of here. I'm freezing my ass off."
Hans turned to Mora. "Goodbye, and goodluck."
Mora waved. "May we met agian soon Hans."
"But next time, under calmer circumstances." Hans took one more look at the enviroment, then slowly walked off.
Rodens sat in his prison cell, fuming. He had been in there a day and a half now. In that time he knew all the Icelers had been exacuated. The damage was done now, irrepairably. Even if Jistap, Hans, and the others were tried and convicted, sentenced to the highest Watcher penalty, then-
Rodens stopped himself. Thats assuming he ever got out of this prison. Jistap had promised him his freedom once the Icelers were safe, but how reliably was Jistap? His word was worthless. If he didn't blink an eyelash at decieving the whole city, why should he care about decieving one man. Rodens thoughts raced on. If Jistap was evil enough to destroy the democracy, he was surely capable of keeping him in prison for, Rodens swallowed, forever. Of course, it made perfect sense now. Why in the world would Jistap want him to be freed. It would only mean his fall from power, and facing criminal charges.
"No!" Rodens screamed aloud and pounded the cell wall. That must not happen. Jistap must not get away with his crimes. Somehow, someway, Rodens realized he must free himself. When he did, he would make sure Jistap was killed. Jistap and all the others. Jistap and-
Again, Rodens stopped himself. Kill Hans too? Why would Hans turn against him? Hans was his friend, one of his best friends. He knew Hans wanted to save the Icelers, but badly enough too betray his friend? No, of course not. Jistap must have corrupted him. Jistap would pay. Oh, how he would make Jistap pay.
But how? How could he hurt Jistap the most. How could he destroy him. Taking his life wasn't enough. Besides, Rodens thought, Jistap may be evil but he is still a Watcher. He couldn't take a fellow Watchers life.
Then, as if struck by lightening, and idea hit Rodens. He smiled with his newfound knowledge. If he killed all the Icelers, that would destroy everything Jistap had worked for. It would shame Hans back to normacly. If Hans could only see, his destruction of the Democracy wasn't for a higher cause. It was useless, totally useless. The Icelers would die anyway, and Jistap will have dishonered himself for nothing. Rodens laughed bitterly. Once Hans saw how useless this was, he would be knocked back to his sensess.
Rodens stopped laughing. He still had no way out of his prison. His mind raced through possibilitys. He couldn't jump the jailgaurd when he came into feed him, because all his food was replicated in the jail cell. Furthermore, the computer had been instructed to only replicate food, and Rodens had found himself unable to convince it to do otherwise. There was also a toliet in the jail cell, so that the door was rarely opened. Rodens thought about faking sickness to get the doors open, but he could be scanned from a distance to prove he was in perfect health.
Or was he? Rodens thought about a self inflicted injury. Then when the door was opened, he could escape. Even Jistap, he reasoned, wouldn't let a fellow Watcher die. "Executer," Rodens called out, "replicate Swavanka please." The Nathorian delicacy appeared before him, complete with a knife to cut it. Swavanka, famous for its toughness, came with a very sharp knife. Rodens grabbed the knife and clenched his teeth against the pain.
Of the thirteen people in league with Jistap, there was always a time when one of them was watching Rodens. Right now, it was Pericula's turn. While she sat in her home, she exercised, read a little of her book, and wrote a letter to her father, all while having Rodens displayed on a monitor, which she glanced up at every once and a while. As she was eating dinner, it was pure coiencidenc that she happened to look up at the monitor just as Rodens grabbed the knife. There was something about the way he held it that made Pericula nervous. He looked at the knife with an almost insane gleam in his eyes. Pericula's dinner dropped out of her hand in surprise when she saw him cut his wrist with the knife. Rodens grimmaced in pain, and held his injured hand for a moment as he figeted in discomfort. Then, as soon as he was able to regain his composure, he cut the other one.
"Computer," she called out. "Is Jistap alone?"
"Jistap is at a public ceremony."
"Is Bakes alone then?"
"Bakes is alone."
"Let me speak with him."
Soon afterwards, Bakes' voice inflatrated the room. "Bakes here, can I help you?"
"This is Pericula. I was watching Rodens on the monitor, and he just cut both his wrists with a knife."
"He What?!"
Pericula glanced up at the monitor. "He just cut his chest. He's cutting himself all over."
"Deka! What the hell is he doing that for?"
"I don't know."
A moment of silence followed, before Bakes responded, "that son of a bitch, he's trying to break out. When we come to try and help him, he'll try and get away."
"What should I do sir."
"Don't move. I'll get back to you. Executer, terminate connection." Pericula looked at the monitor again. Rodens had now slashed most of his body. With the exception of his wrists, none of the slashes were very deep. She concluded that he must be saving his strength for a breakour.
"Incoming message."
"Put it through. Bakes, is that you?"
"Yes, I've got Rodens on my monitor now. That crazy bastard is cut all over his body. I just checked the location of the other eleven of us. Everyone is involved some way or another with rescuing the Icelers, or at the ceremony celebrating their rescue. I, myself, am expected to speak at that ceremony in ten minutes. Your on your own."
"What do I do?"
"Replicate a weapon along with appropriate medical supplies. While you attend to his injuries, keep the weapon pointed at him at all times. In the meantime, I'll just reprogram his replicator from here so that it doesn't replicate utensils. If I'm a couple minutes late to the ceremony, who cares."
"Yes sir."
"Pericula, keep an eye on Rodens all the time. For Deka's sake, stay safe. We're counting on you."
"Yes sir."
"I'll check things out as soon as I can break away from the ceremony. Until then. Executor, terminate connection."
Pericula looked on the monitor and saw Rodens' bloody corpse lying on the floor, face down, motionless. She shivered with fear.
Hans stepped out of the city, followed by his ambassadors. Hans was wearing a light coat, and thin gloves. The Coler mountains had lost their bite, and were only mildly cold. In some places, where the sun shone hot and bright, the snow was already melting. In his hand, Hans held a small computer, that was pointing the way to the Iceler villiage. Hans followed the computer, and his ambassadors followed him.
Hans lead them for about a half a mile trek through the snow. After climbing a large hill, the group came upon the Iceler community. The sight was anything but a hopeful one. Many of the Iceler homes had collasped in the heat. Some of the Icelers themselves lay sprawled out on the ground, appearently suffering from the temperature. As soon as the Icelers saw Hans and his group, they reacted with fear, some running away, others preparing to fight. It was obvious they had never seen Humans before.
Hans, in preperation for this meeting, had previously programed several Iceler phrases into his computer. He recalled on of them onto the screen and read it. In Iceler it said, "Do not be afraid. We are on a mission of peace. We are here to help you." The Icelers calmed down. Many of them stopped running, and their shouting was decreased to a great degree. Hans recalled another phrase and read it. "It is hot isn't it?" He expected a response, but upon recieving none from the spellbound Icelers, he continued reading. "I am here to help. These mountains are heating up. Soon you will die. My people want to transport you to a place where it is cold, like this place used to be." When Hans had prepared his little speech, he was sure he would recieve a response at this point, but the Icelers wonder kept them from finding words, so Hans kept reading. "We have come to talk to you. We don't know your language well, so please forgive our inability to speak smoothly. If you wish, we will transport you to safety." An akward silence followed. Hans waved his hand as a signal to the ambassadors, who integrated themselves among the Icelers and began talking to them.
After fifteen minutes or so of this, Hans was approached by one of the Icelers, appearently the leader. He spoke to Hans, and the computer translated it. Hans read the screen, "you can help us?"
Hans responded, "yes", a word that had stayed the same in both languages.
Again the Iceler spoke, and his words were translated. "My people are dying. You must get them to a colder climate quickly."
In very poor Iceler, "you can count on us." The two men shook hands.
Little time was wasted on diplomatics, with the temperature raising rapidly. The Icelers were loaded into ships built by the executer. These ships were speciffically built to hold a large number of Icelers, and were kept at negative fifty degrees, except for the pilots cockpit. Once the destination was programmed into these ships, they practically flew themselve, but two pilots came along just in case. To avoid being seen by the rest of the planet, these ships flew high above the clouds, but unfortunately there were many creatures on Fabulae who could also fly that high.
Five ships were all the executer had to build since each was very big. Little time was wasted getting the Icelers aboard. Hans himself piloted one of the ships. The speed of the ships was such that the journey took only an hour.
In what seemed all to soon a time, Hans was saying good bye to the Iceler leader. In the short time they were together, the two had learned enough about eachothers langauge to be able to communicate somewhat smoothly.
"I must thank your people again," the leader said.
Hans smiled. "I'm just glad we could help. I think you'll be happy in your new enviroment."
"Yes, I think we will be. I wish our two species could live in the same enviroment. I really enjoyed getting to know you."
Hans turned a little red at the compliment. "I'll be back often to see you. I can always wear warm clothes."
The leader returned Hans smile. "Until then, take this to remember my people by." He handed Hans a piece of soft rock, a kind Hans had never seen before. It had been molded into a human figure. "We told stories and made pictures of your kind, but we didn't think you actually existed" explained the leader.
Hans gave the leader his scarf. "You can take this to remember me by."
The two stood in silence for a couple minutes, gazing out at the beautiful white ground which stretched out forever. Then the leader spoke. "My name is Mora. What is yours?"
"I am Hans."
In the distance, a voice called out. "Hans, lets get out of here. I'm freezing my ass off."
Hans turned to Mora. "Goodbye, and goodluck."
Mora waved. "May we met agian soon Hans."
"But next time, under calmer circumstances." Hans took one more look at the enviroment, then slowly walked off.
Rodens sat in his prison cell, fuming. He had been in there a day and a half now. In that time he knew all the Icelers had been exacuated. The damage was done now, irrepairably. Even if Jistap, Hans, and the others were tried and convicted, sentenced to the highest Watcher penalty, then-
Rodens stopped himself. Thats assuming he ever got out of this prison. Jistap had promised him his freedom once the Icelers were safe, but how reliably was Jistap? His word was worthless. If he didn't blink an eyelash at decieving the whole city, why should he care about decieving one man. Rodens thoughts raced on. If Jistap was evil enough to destroy the democracy, he was surely capable of keeping him in prison for, Rodens swallowed, forever. Of course, it made perfect sense now. Why in the world would Jistap want him to be freed. It would only mean his fall from power, and facing criminal charges.
"No!" Rodens screamed aloud and pounded the cell wall. That must not happen. Jistap must not get away with his crimes. Somehow, someway, Rodens realized he must free himself. When he did, he would make sure Jistap was killed. Jistap and all the others. Jistap and-
Again, Rodens stopped himself. Kill Hans too? Why would Hans turn against him? Hans was his friend, one of his best friends. He knew Hans wanted to save the Icelers, but badly enough too betray his friend? No, of course not. Jistap must have corrupted him. Jistap would pay. Oh, how he would make Jistap pay.
But how? How could he hurt Jistap the most. How could he destroy him. Taking his life wasn't enough. Besides, Rodens thought, Jistap may be evil but he is still a Watcher. He couldn't take a fellow Watchers life.
Then, as if struck by lightening, and idea hit Rodens. He smiled with his newfound knowledge. If he killed all the Icelers, that would destroy everything Jistap had worked for. It would shame Hans back to normacly. If Hans could only see, his destruction of the Democracy wasn't for a higher cause. It was useless, totally useless. The Icelers would die anyway, and Jistap will have dishonered himself for nothing. Rodens laughed bitterly. Once Hans saw how useless this was, he would be knocked back to his sensess.
Rodens stopped laughing. He still had no way out of his prison. His mind raced through possibilitys. He couldn't jump the jailgaurd when he came into feed him, because all his food was replicated in the jail cell. Furthermore, the computer had been instructed to only replicate food, and Rodens had found himself unable to convince it to do otherwise. There was also a toliet in the jail cell, so that the door was rarely opened. Rodens thought about faking sickness to get the doors open, but he could be scanned from a distance to prove he was in perfect health.
Or was he? Rodens thought about a self inflicted injury. Then when the door was opened, he could escape. Even Jistap, he reasoned, wouldn't let a fellow Watcher die. "Executer," Rodens called out, "replicate Swavanka please." The Nathorian delicacy appeared before him, complete with a knife to cut it. Swavanka, famous for its toughness, came with a very sharp knife. Rodens grabbed the knife and clenched his teeth against the pain.
Of the thirteen people in league with Jistap, there was always a time when one of them was watching Rodens. Right now, it was Pericula's turn. While she sat in her home, she exercised, read a little of her book, and wrote a letter to her father, all while having Rodens displayed on a monitor, which she glanced up at every once and a while. As she was eating dinner, it was pure coiencidenc that she happened to look up at the monitor just as Rodens grabbed the knife. There was something about the way he held it that made Pericula nervous. He looked at the knife with an almost insane gleam in his eyes. Pericula's dinner dropped out of her hand in surprise when she saw him cut his wrist with the knife. Rodens grimmaced in pain, and held his injured hand for a moment as he figeted in discomfort. Then, as soon as he was able to regain his composure, he cut the other one.
"Computer," she called out. "Is Jistap alone?"
"Jistap is at a public ceremony."
"Is Bakes alone then?"
"Bakes is alone."
"Let me speak with him."
Soon afterwards, Bakes' voice inflatrated the room. "Bakes here, can I help you?"
"This is Pericula. I was watching Rodens on the monitor, and he just cut both his wrists with a knife."
"He What?!"
Pericula glanced up at the monitor. "He just cut his chest. He's cutting himself all over."
"Deka! What the hell is he doing that for?"
"I don't know."
A moment of silence followed, before Bakes responded, "that son of a bitch, he's trying to break out. When we come to try and help him, he'll try and get away."
"What should I do sir."
"Don't move. I'll get back to you. Executer, terminate connection." Pericula looked at the monitor again. Rodens had now slashed most of his body. With the exception of his wrists, none of the slashes were very deep. She concluded that he must be saving his strength for a breakour.
"Incoming message."
"Put it through. Bakes, is that you?"
"Yes, I've got Rodens on my monitor now. That crazy bastard is cut all over his body. I just checked the location of the other eleven of us. Everyone is involved some way or another with rescuing the Icelers, or at the ceremony celebrating their rescue. I, myself, am expected to speak at that ceremony in ten minutes. Your on your own."
"What do I do?"
"Replicate a weapon along with appropriate medical supplies. While you attend to his injuries, keep the weapon pointed at him at all times. In the meantime, I'll just reprogram his replicator from here so that it doesn't replicate utensils. If I'm a couple minutes late to the ceremony, who cares."
"Yes sir."
"Pericula, keep an eye on Rodens all the time. For Deka's sake, stay safe. We're counting on you."
"Yes sir."
"I'll check things out as soon as I can break away from the ceremony. Until then. Executor, terminate connection."
Pericula looked on the monitor and saw Rodens' bloody corpse lying on the floor, face down, motionless. She shivered with fear.
The Watchers Chapter 6
IN THE TENTH YEAR OF RECAB, KING OF DISHON
Rodens lay in a small pool of his own blood. His head was turned toward the wall, making it so Pericula could not see his face. His hands lay sprawled out slightly beyond his head. He was completely motionless.
Pericula removed a small object from her waist, pistol like in configuration. It was called a burner, because it shot forth an energy beam that caused severe burns on its target. She aimed the burner at Rodens. "Rodens, you even try to move and I'll boil your blood so that you could make a hot spring jealous." To late, Pericula realized the futility of her threat. Someone who was willing to cut themselves into subconscious probably didn't care about being burned. Her hand turned down the knob that controlled the energy barrier at the cell's entrance. The energy went to zero.
Pericula looked at Rodens. He was still motionless. Ever so carefully, she approached him, keeping the burned aimed at him all the time. She knelt down and gently touched his shoulder, her nerves wound so tight she felt they could snap any moment. Her hand leaped away the first time it touched his body, but when he did not move, she slowly lowered her hand again. Again she pulled it back rapidly as soon as it had contacted his shoulder, but when he still did not move, she felt safe enough to grab hold of him. As she turned him over, she felt the sticky warmth of his blood against her hands. His front side was a mess of cuts with a mix of dried and partially dried blood. Pericula removed a round object, what we would equate as about the size of a baseball. She placed it above his body, and stepped back. The ball turned from its black color to a bright red and made a soft humming sound as it hovered above him. The blood on Rodens body disappeared, and the cuts were healed. The ball turned back to its original black color and the humming sound ceased. Rodens body looked perfectly healthy. Even the blood around him had been absorbed by the ball, which still hovered above him.
As Pericula came to retrieve the ball, Rodens foot flashed out and hit her in the stomach before she could fire the burner. Pericula recovered from the blow almost instantly, but that was all the time Rodens needed to get to his feet. Pericula's finger touched the fire button on the burner just a fraction of a second after Rodens' hand grabbed her wrist, and jerked it away from its position, aimed towards him. The blast hit the wall harmlessly. Pericula's right fist hit Rodens face, sending him stumbling backwards. When he recovered his balance he saw the burner aimed right at him. He moved quickly, lunging for Pericula, but was not quick enough to avoid her aim. His right shoulder was hit by the burner. The smell of charred flesh filled the air. As he collided with Pericula, he found his entire right arm to be useless in the struggle. They both fell to the floor from the collision, Rodens landing on top of Pericula. With his left hand, Rodens grabbed the burner, and tried to wrestle it out of Pericula's right hand. Pericula's other hand struck Rodens face, and proceeded to push his head as far away as she could. Rodens was able to twist Pericula's arm until she was forced to drop the weapon. No sooner had the burner left her hand, then Pericula's knee came up swiftly, making contact with Roden's stomach. As Rodens face showed his pain, Pericula's right fist landed on his jaw. His head jerked back, and she hit him again. He fell off her. Immediately she rolled over to her stomach and reached for the burner. It was out of her grasp. She was about crawl towards it Rodens leaped on her back, holding her from advancing. She strained to reach the burner, but he back her hand. They grappled for a moment, each trying to reach the burner while holding the other one back, but Pericula clearly had the advantage, having the use of one more arm. Rodens concluded she would inevitably be the one to reach the weapon, so he decided to gain the advantage by being the first one on his feet. While Pericula grabbed the burner, he jumped to an upright position. As she turned to fire at him, he kicked the device out of her hand. He then repeatedly kicked her. Before she could counterattack he had leaped away and was running for the burner. She saw the danger of the situation at once, and ran after him. Rodens reached the burner first and turned around to fire the weapon. In his haste he paid no heed to Pericula's safety, and the blast hit her in the face.
Rodens sighed with relief, and turned to look at the injury. His shoulder was completely black and charred, yet he felt no pain. He reasoned his nerves must have been burned out. He grabbed the ball from the place where it had remained hovering, and waited as it healed his wound. After the ball had stopped moving, he rotated his right arm. His shoulder felt perfectly normal. Rodens then placed the ball above Pericula, and as he heard it humming he exited the cell and turned the forcefield back on. Holding the burner ready, he raced down the hall.
Hans had returned to be welcomed as a hero by some, and scorned by others. There was no debate however, he was the man of the hour. His leadership had allowed the mission to operate smoothly and successfully. All the Icelers had been evacuated, and the ships had taken great care not to be seen by any other life forms. Since the Coler Mountains were inhabited only by the Icelers, no one saw the ships take of from the hangers hidden beneath the mountain, and only those that could fly saw the ships flying above the clouds. Most controversial was the fact that The Watchers had told their secret to the Icelers, but the Icelers had promised to keep their secret.
Hans feet had hardly touched the ground of his city, when he was whisked to the ceremony. He was asked to give an impromptu speech, at which he did his best. Then he had to shake what seemed like thousands of hands, before being given a medal of service by Jistap. Immediately after the ceremony, Hans had stayed to receive the congratulations of many.
Hans had arrived back at his house exhausted. He knew he should try and get to sleep, but he was to excited. He had never received as much recognition in his life as he had at the ceremony. More then half the city must have been there to cheer him. Hans decided to try and relax by viewing what can be described as The Watcher equivalent of television. As Hans was watching the television, he heard the familiar voice of the Executor. "Incoming message."
"Put it through. This is Hans, can I help you?"
"Hans, this is Jistap. We've got a problem. Go to location seven, I'll explain when you get there."
Bakes frantically leaned over his computer, calling out commands and pushing buttons. He had left the ceremony as early as he could and rushed to location number three. He had found Pericula, lying in the cell unconscious. Rodens was nowhere in sight. By having the Teacher show him the events that had happened only moments before, Bakes saw the struggle that had occurred between Pericula and Rodens, and he saw how Pericula had been defeated, but completely healed by the ball. Once he was sure she was completely healed, he gently woke her up. He then tried to track down Rodens movements.
The Teacher showed him that Rodens had ran down to the hanger bay. He had taken a ship and flown away. It was illegal for a Watcher to leave the city without permission from the government, but in the confusion of people and ships entering and leaving the city to save the Icelers, Rodens managed to sneak out quite easily. Taking a small one man craft he had headed off towards the North Pole, where the Icelers had been shipped. Bakes had tried to recall the ship from the city, but Rodens had disconnected the link between the ship and the city. Getting it back would be hard, if not impossible. If anybody could do it, Bakes knew it was him and he worked all the harder.
Bakes tried to tune out Jistap. In the same room, Jistap was explaining to the other eleven what the situation was. "Bakes is working hard," said Jistap, as he continued his update. "But it looks like we won't be able to reestablish the link. It appears very likely that Rodens is out for blood, or maybe I should say water. We think he's going to kill the Icelers. We need a volunteer to get out there and stop him, ASAP. A ship has been made ready. Do we have any volunteers?"
Bakes almost raised his hand, thinking this was all his fault for sending Pericula into that cell alone, but he stopped. He knew he was needed here. Both Pericula's and Hans' hand shot up.
"Let me go," pleaded Pericula. "I was the one who let him out, let me be the one who tracks him down."
"No, let me go," Hans insisted. "Rodens is my friend. It was my bad acting that allowed him to discover the plot in the first place. Let me be the one stops him. He's still my friend, I'll be able to reason with him."
"He must be stopped, whatever the cost is. That is your first concern. You can reason with him later. Is that understood?" Hans nodded. "Good. Rodens has made his ship invisible to sensors. Do the same to your ship. He will not be able to find you, unless you communicate with the city. He would then be able to track down the origin of the communication to your ship. For that reason, we'll have to sever the link between the city and your ship. That means you won't be able to benefit from the images the satellite is sending. In other words, you'll have no idea where Rodens is, and be left to your own wits to track him down. Fortunately he'll be in the same position. We'll monitor your progress, and if you get in trouble we'll help you out, but other then that your on your own."
"I understand."
"Excellent. Hans, come with me. The rest of you are dismissed."
The other ten got up and left, while Hans went over to talk to Jistap. "Before I leave, there's just one problem we have to settle. Our mission has been accomplished, all the Icelers are at the north pole. It's time to turn ourselves in."
"I believe the conditions were once all of the Icelers were safe, and as you can see, they are in great danger." Jistap noticed the concerned look on Hans face. "Don't worry. I promise, once this whole thing is over, we'll turn ourselves in. Until then, we've got lives to save."
Hans had immediatly taken the super elevator to the hanger. The ship was ready and waiting, and Hans was helped into the cockpit by a couple of mechanics, who weren't quite sure what was going on. The ship was identical to the one Rodens had taken off in. It was short and sleek, less then seven meters long, four meters wide, and barely high enough for Hans to stand up. It's interior consisted of everything Hans would need to stay alive for however long this adventure took him, a synthesizer, a bed, and a computer. It could be adjusted to any temperature Hans wanted, and used a fuel supply that would recharge automatically, and allowed the ship to fly for twelve hours straight without recharging. As soon as Hans was in the cockpit, the hanger bay doors opened and Hans took off, flying at maximum speed. Hans glanced at the instruments, and realized with dread that it would take him an hour even at this speed to reach the north pole. Rodens already had a hour and a half head start on him. Hans looked at a box in near the back of the craft, filled with weapons of all kinds. He felt sick as it dawned on him that Rodens had the same box in his ship, plus each ship had the massive laser cannons mounted on it. If Rodens truly was intent on destroying the Icelers, he had the potential to do great damage. One shot with a burner could melt the whole Iceler. Hans quivered as he imagined the horror in store for the Icelers.
Rodens lay in a small pool of his own blood. His head was turned toward the wall, making it so Pericula could not see his face. His hands lay sprawled out slightly beyond his head. He was completely motionless.
Pericula removed a small object from her waist, pistol like in configuration. It was called a burner, because it shot forth an energy beam that caused severe burns on its target. She aimed the burner at Rodens. "Rodens, you even try to move and I'll boil your blood so that you could make a hot spring jealous." To late, Pericula realized the futility of her threat. Someone who was willing to cut themselves into subconscious probably didn't care about being burned. Her hand turned down the knob that controlled the energy barrier at the cell's entrance. The energy went to zero.
Pericula looked at Rodens. He was still motionless. Ever so carefully, she approached him, keeping the burned aimed at him all the time. She knelt down and gently touched his shoulder, her nerves wound so tight she felt they could snap any moment. Her hand leaped away the first time it touched his body, but when he did not move, she slowly lowered her hand again. Again she pulled it back rapidly as soon as it had contacted his shoulder, but when he still did not move, she felt safe enough to grab hold of him. As she turned him over, she felt the sticky warmth of his blood against her hands. His front side was a mess of cuts with a mix of dried and partially dried blood. Pericula removed a round object, what we would equate as about the size of a baseball. She placed it above his body, and stepped back. The ball turned from its black color to a bright red and made a soft humming sound as it hovered above him. The blood on Rodens body disappeared, and the cuts were healed. The ball turned back to its original black color and the humming sound ceased. Rodens body looked perfectly healthy. Even the blood around him had been absorbed by the ball, which still hovered above him.
As Pericula came to retrieve the ball, Rodens foot flashed out and hit her in the stomach before she could fire the burner. Pericula recovered from the blow almost instantly, but that was all the time Rodens needed to get to his feet. Pericula's finger touched the fire button on the burner just a fraction of a second after Rodens' hand grabbed her wrist, and jerked it away from its position, aimed towards him. The blast hit the wall harmlessly. Pericula's right fist hit Rodens face, sending him stumbling backwards. When he recovered his balance he saw the burner aimed right at him. He moved quickly, lunging for Pericula, but was not quick enough to avoid her aim. His right shoulder was hit by the burner. The smell of charred flesh filled the air. As he collided with Pericula, he found his entire right arm to be useless in the struggle. They both fell to the floor from the collision, Rodens landing on top of Pericula. With his left hand, Rodens grabbed the burner, and tried to wrestle it out of Pericula's right hand. Pericula's other hand struck Rodens face, and proceeded to push his head as far away as she could. Rodens was able to twist Pericula's arm until she was forced to drop the weapon. No sooner had the burner left her hand, then Pericula's knee came up swiftly, making contact with Roden's stomach. As Rodens face showed his pain, Pericula's right fist landed on his jaw. His head jerked back, and she hit him again. He fell off her. Immediately she rolled over to her stomach and reached for the burner. It was out of her grasp. She was about crawl towards it Rodens leaped on her back, holding her from advancing. She strained to reach the burner, but he back her hand. They grappled for a moment, each trying to reach the burner while holding the other one back, but Pericula clearly had the advantage, having the use of one more arm. Rodens concluded she would inevitably be the one to reach the weapon, so he decided to gain the advantage by being the first one on his feet. While Pericula grabbed the burner, he jumped to an upright position. As she turned to fire at him, he kicked the device out of her hand. He then repeatedly kicked her. Before she could counterattack he had leaped away and was running for the burner. She saw the danger of the situation at once, and ran after him. Rodens reached the burner first and turned around to fire the weapon. In his haste he paid no heed to Pericula's safety, and the blast hit her in the face.
Rodens sighed with relief, and turned to look at the injury. His shoulder was completely black and charred, yet he felt no pain. He reasoned his nerves must have been burned out. He grabbed the ball from the place where it had remained hovering, and waited as it healed his wound. After the ball had stopped moving, he rotated his right arm. His shoulder felt perfectly normal. Rodens then placed the ball above Pericula, and as he heard it humming he exited the cell and turned the forcefield back on. Holding the burner ready, he raced down the hall.
Hans had returned to be welcomed as a hero by some, and scorned by others. There was no debate however, he was the man of the hour. His leadership had allowed the mission to operate smoothly and successfully. All the Icelers had been evacuated, and the ships had taken great care not to be seen by any other life forms. Since the Coler Mountains were inhabited only by the Icelers, no one saw the ships take of from the hangers hidden beneath the mountain, and only those that could fly saw the ships flying above the clouds. Most controversial was the fact that The Watchers had told their secret to the Icelers, but the Icelers had promised to keep their secret.
Hans feet had hardly touched the ground of his city, when he was whisked to the ceremony. He was asked to give an impromptu speech, at which he did his best. Then he had to shake what seemed like thousands of hands, before being given a medal of service by Jistap. Immediately after the ceremony, Hans had stayed to receive the congratulations of many.
Hans had arrived back at his house exhausted. He knew he should try and get to sleep, but he was to excited. He had never received as much recognition in his life as he had at the ceremony. More then half the city must have been there to cheer him. Hans decided to try and relax by viewing what can be described as The Watcher equivalent of television. As Hans was watching the television, he heard the familiar voice of the Executor. "Incoming message."
"Put it through. This is Hans, can I help you?"
"Hans, this is Jistap. We've got a problem. Go to location seven, I'll explain when you get there."
Bakes frantically leaned over his computer, calling out commands and pushing buttons. He had left the ceremony as early as he could and rushed to location number three. He had found Pericula, lying in the cell unconscious. Rodens was nowhere in sight. By having the Teacher show him the events that had happened only moments before, Bakes saw the struggle that had occurred between Pericula and Rodens, and he saw how Pericula had been defeated, but completely healed by the ball. Once he was sure she was completely healed, he gently woke her up. He then tried to track down Rodens movements.
The Teacher showed him that Rodens had ran down to the hanger bay. He had taken a ship and flown away. It was illegal for a Watcher to leave the city without permission from the government, but in the confusion of people and ships entering and leaving the city to save the Icelers, Rodens managed to sneak out quite easily. Taking a small one man craft he had headed off towards the North Pole, where the Icelers had been shipped. Bakes had tried to recall the ship from the city, but Rodens had disconnected the link between the ship and the city. Getting it back would be hard, if not impossible. If anybody could do it, Bakes knew it was him and he worked all the harder.
Bakes tried to tune out Jistap. In the same room, Jistap was explaining to the other eleven what the situation was. "Bakes is working hard," said Jistap, as he continued his update. "But it looks like we won't be able to reestablish the link. It appears very likely that Rodens is out for blood, or maybe I should say water. We think he's going to kill the Icelers. We need a volunteer to get out there and stop him, ASAP. A ship has been made ready. Do we have any volunteers?"
Bakes almost raised his hand, thinking this was all his fault for sending Pericula into that cell alone, but he stopped. He knew he was needed here. Both Pericula's and Hans' hand shot up.
"Let me go," pleaded Pericula. "I was the one who let him out, let me be the one who tracks him down."
"No, let me go," Hans insisted. "Rodens is my friend. It was my bad acting that allowed him to discover the plot in the first place. Let me be the one stops him. He's still my friend, I'll be able to reason with him."
"He must be stopped, whatever the cost is. That is your first concern. You can reason with him later. Is that understood?" Hans nodded. "Good. Rodens has made his ship invisible to sensors. Do the same to your ship. He will not be able to find you, unless you communicate with the city. He would then be able to track down the origin of the communication to your ship. For that reason, we'll have to sever the link between the city and your ship. That means you won't be able to benefit from the images the satellite is sending. In other words, you'll have no idea where Rodens is, and be left to your own wits to track him down. Fortunately he'll be in the same position. We'll monitor your progress, and if you get in trouble we'll help you out, but other then that your on your own."
"I understand."
"Excellent. Hans, come with me. The rest of you are dismissed."
The other ten got up and left, while Hans went over to talk to Jistap. "Before I leave, there's just one problem we have to settle. Our mission has been accomplished, all the Icelers are at the north pole. It's time to turn ourselves in."
"I believe the conditions were once all of the Icelers were safe, and as you can see, they are in great danger." Jistap noticed the concerned look on Hans face. "Don't worry. I promise, once this whole thing is over, we'll turn ourselves in. Until then, we've got lives to save."
Hans had immediatly taken the super elevator to the hanger. The ship was ready and waiting, and Hans was helped into the cockpit by a couple of mechanics, who weren't quite sure what was going on. The ship was identical to the one Rodens had taken off in. It was short and sleek, less then seven meters long, four meters wide, and barely high enough for Hans to stand up. It's interior consisted of everything Hans would need to stay alive for however long this adventure took him, a synthesizer, a bed, and a computer. It could be adjusted to any temperature Hans wanted, and used a fuel supply that would recharge automatically, and allowed the ship to fly for twelve hours straight without recharging. As soon as Hans was in the cockpit, the hanger bay doors opened and Hans took off, flying at maximum speed. Hans glanced at the instruments, and realized with dread that it would take him an hour even at this speed to reach the north pole. Rodens already had a hour and a half head start on him. Hans looked at a box in near the back of the craft, filled with weapons of all kinds. He felt sick as it dawned on him that Rodens had the same box in his ship, plus each ship had the massive laser cannons mounted on it. If Rodens truly was intent on destroying the Icelers, he had the potential to do great damage. One shot with a burner could melt the whole Iceler. Hans quivered as he imagined the horror in store for the Icelers.
The Watchers Chapter 7
IN THE TENTH YEAR OF RECAB, KING OF DISHON
The ship slowly glided to the ground, at the north pole. Hans leaped out and looked around for any clues he could find. He had not been able to locate Rodens ship with his sensors, but if Rodens wanted to, he could have made his ship invisible to the sensors. Hans completed his visual scan of the area, and did not see any signs of life. His sensors had identified that there were several Icelers in the vicinity, so Hans called out. He received no response. He called out again and had the same result. Hans removed his computer from his pocket, and called up an Iceler phrase. "I'm here to help," he called out in Iceler. "I am Hans. I wish you no harm." A cry came out in response. Hans sprinted toward the cry, and after clearing a small hill, saw that it had originated from a cave, one of several. Hans dashed into the cave. "Hello! Hello!" Hans called out the greetings that were the same in Iceler language as well as his. Several figures came from inside the cave and stood several meters away from Hans. One pushed his way through the others and walked up to Hans. Hans immediately recognized him as Mora.
"Take back this gift, for I have no desire to possess a gift of friendship from one who kills my people." Mora thrust Hans scarf back into his hands.
Hans head pounded as his worst fears were being confirmed. "Your people were killed by-" Hans suddenly stopped, the words stuck in his throat. "By one of my people?"
Mora's tone softened, as did his expression. Apparently he realized that Hans wasn't quite sure what was going on. "He came in a ship, like the ones you used to transport us here, only much smaller. Fire shot out of it. It melted my people as soon as it touched them. We all scattered for shelter, as the fire continued to fall. Once we were all safe in the caves, the ship flew away, maybe to kill more Icelers."
Hans could stand no longer, and slowly sank to a sitting position, leaning against the wall of the cave. He felt nauseous, sweat gathered on his hands and forehead. His whole body seemed to burn with heat even though it was bitterly cold. His head rolled to his side, and for the first time he was able to clearly see the expressions of the other Icelers. A rather inquisitive look was on their faces, since they could not understand all of the pidgin Iceler that had exchanged between the two. Hans himself had to have the computer translating throughout the entire conversation in order to understand all of what was being said to him. Hans was still a little confused, but he understood enough. His best friend was a murderer and had betrayed The Watchers. Finally, when Hans had gathered up the strength, he asked, "how many were killed?"
"About twenty, more are wounded."
"Wounded?" Hans was surprised. The weapons on the ship were powerful enough to melt an Iceler no matter where the blast hit him. How could an Iceler only be wounded? Mora must have seen the confusion in Hans eyes, for he beckoned for him to follow. He lead Hans deeper into the cave, though still close enough to the entrance to allow light to pass through. Hans was repulsed by the deformed bodies he saw lying along the side of the cave. He realized then that if a heat blast struck next to an Iceler, the heat was powerful enough to travel through the ground and contact the Iceler. The heat would then warp the victims body, if not killing him. Hans estimated a heat blast could warp a body up to five meters away. Tears came to his eyes as Hans observed the wounded. Little children who would be crippled the rest of their lives. Young woman who looked like they were quite beautiful before heat had destroyed their bodies. Young men whose youth had been suddenly destroyed, all of these suffering side by side. The words of Mora lingered in Hans' mind, 'Once we were all safe in the caves, the ship flew away, maybe to kill more Icelers.'
"No," Hans screamed aloud. "This ends now." Without a word of explanation Hans sprinted out of the cave and ran full speed towards his ship. Mora was right on his heels. As he entered the ship, Hans turned to talk to Mora. "Will you come with me?" he asked.
"No, my people need me here. I would not be of much help to you anyway, but I can tell you he went that way." Mora pointed South.
Hans nodded his thanks. "Take back this scarf," he said, throwing it to Mora. "We are still friends."
"You keep it Hans," Mora said, throwing it back. "If you're going to stay in this weather long, you'll need it more than I do."
Hans was forced to agree with this, and was about to take off, when an idea struck him. He called out to Mora, who was already walking back to his cave, and beckoned him to come back.
Hans took a rather large firearm from his box of weapons. It was heavy, the whole thing weighed about thirty five kilograms. It was about as long as Hans' arm, and had two straps that could be tied around the arm of the user. "This," said Hans, "is a laser rifle. It isn't quite as strong as the lasers on these ships, but it can pack quite a powerful punch. If the ship comes back, this can do some damage to it if you hit it, just make sure it's not me before you fire." Mora nodded, taking the weapon gently as Hans handed it to him. "I'll see you later, I hope," Hans called out as he shut the door to his ship. The warmth of the ship felt good to him after being out in the cold environment. Hans took off, and flew in the direction that Mora had pointed him to.
"We've got another problem, sir," Bakes said. "Rodens family has been deeply concerned with his disappearance. They have, as you probably guessed, tried to review his activities of the last few days with the Teachers help. Naturally they were surprised when that information came up classified. They began talking to their friends about it, and the story spread like wildfire. I'd be surprised if there is one Watcher that doesn't know about it. They're demanding an explanation."
"Tell them that information needed to be classified for security reasons, and we have no further comment at this time. If someone else should stumble upon some more classified information, tell them the same thing." Jistap voiced his orders confidently.
"But sir, we can't do that," Bakes argued. "You know as well as I do it's against Watcher law to classify anything. We'll be arrested."
"No we won't. You understand the computers better than any of the other Watchers. You have that program ready?"
"The program is ready sir," Bakes answered.
"What program?" Pericula asked.
Jistap smiled. "Oh, that's right. I've neglected to tell you about the little project Bakes and I have been working on. As soon as Bakes engages it, all computer commands will be under my control only. I will have-" Jistap checked himself. "We will have complete rule of the city. Neither the Teacher nor the Executor will do anything unless it is my will. On top of that, I have several young men who share my ideals, about a thousand to be exact, and they have been training for this day. They are my personal army."
Pericula exchanged confused glances with the other ten sitting at the table. "You told Hans we would turn ourselves in after the Icelers were safe. What are you talking about now?"
Jistap sighed and shook his head. "My dear, Hans was a young, foolish, idealist. I expected better out of you. You know yourself how prejudice and selfish our people can be. Rodens is a perfect example, and there are plenty who would follow in his footsteps if they were given the chance. I have great things in mind for the city, but I can not accomplish any of them democratically. The people would never agree to any of it."
"Just what do you have in mind?" Pericula asked, making no attempt to hide the contempt in her voice.
"Look at us!" Jistap waved his hand around the room. "From the day we were born, we've had every thing we wanted. We've never been hungry in our lives. Anything we desire, we can have the Executor make for us. There is no disease the Executor can't cure. Yet everyday, we watch on the monitors so much suffering in the world. Lands destroyed by war, ruthless dictators who kill right and left, people dying every day of disease, and hunger. Living their worthless lives in absolute poverty." Jistap's voice had gradually grown louder as he talked, but now it jumped into a shrieking yell. "And what do we do? What do we do about the misery we see all the time in the world? We sip a cup of tea and watch it happen. Oh, I've tried to correct the problem democratically," the word democratically was uttered sourly, "I've tried to follow the book. I've proposed changes, but nobody supports me. These people wouldn't even save the Icelers, because it would risk being discovered. Rodens is out their right now killing Icelers." Jistap ended his speech, his face burning red with anger. His breathing, slightly increased because of the shouting. A silence fell over the room for a couple of minutes. Then Jistap continued, much softer then before, almost a whisper. "Tonight, that will all end. My army will put me in power. I will begin my mission. We will fly food in our ships, and distribute it to whoever needs it. We will cure all those with diseases. We will stop all wars, and depose any undeserving ruler. An era of peace and happiness will follow that Fabulae has never known before. Who's with me?" Nine hands immediately shot up. Pericula the only one who didn't join.
"Still unconvinced to join my cause, Pericula? Are you just another selfish Watcher?"
"If that was so, I wouldn't have helped you save the Icelers."
"Alright, then what keeps you from joining me?"
"What happens when you die?"
"Pardon"
"I said, what happens when you die."
Jistap thought for a moment. "Why, someone will succeed me of course."
"Who?"
Jistap was forced to think again. "I don't know. Someone I pick who will continue my cause."
"But I thought you said all of the people are selfish."
Jistap did not like being made into a fool. "Just make your point," he growled.
Pericula took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Sir, the point is that if you destroy democracy, you'll have absolute power. I have no doubt that you will use your power wisely, but someday you'll die, and then who can be assured that the one after you will be just. Whoever succeeds you will have absolute control of the city, and whoever has absolute control of the city can conquer Fabulae if they want to, and use the whole world as nothing more then something to serve them hand and foot."
"I assure you I'll will pick my successor carefully."
"Oh, I'm sure you will sir. And anyone you pick will probably pick a worthy successor in turn. And his successor will pick a worthy successor also. But somewhere down the line, someone who is completely undeserving of the power will be picked. History is filled with such examples."
"I'll admit there is no guarantee that some where down the line, someone will do something undeserving with the power, but the danger is just as great that the inhabitants of the city will democratically try and conquer the world to serve themselves."
"No sir, the danger is not as great because in democracy someone is always representing the opposite side. Please, use democracy to introduce your new ideas. Don't give up, just be patient"
Jistap practically exploded. "Don't tell me to be patient. You tell the starving people to be patient. Tell the soldiers to be patient. Tell the diseased to be patient. They can't wait any longer. I'm going to act now. Your either with me or against me, and you don't want to be against me."
Pericula searched the room for support. Every face she met was hostile. In a dry voice she asked, "What exactly happens to me if I don't join you?"
"Oh, you'll be exiled I suspect. Maybe killed if you actively oppose me, but I hope it doesn't come to that. If you join me, I'll offer you power beyond your wildest dreams."
"I thought you weren't after power, just justice."
Jistap shrugged. "I'll need power to perform my tasks. Besides, with all the good I'm doing for the world, I don't think a little reward for myself is out of the question."
Pericula carefully considered her options. "Count me in," she said at last. A soft round of applause was given.
"Excellent. Bakes, the program." Bakes pressed a couple of buttons on his computer.
"It's all set," he said. "You have complete control."
Jistap laughed in delight, and couldn't restrain himself from standing up and doing a small dance. "Now," he giggled, "inform my army to begin taking control. Executor, render all energy discharging weapons useless, except those used by my army. Allow no one to replicate weapons, except my army."
"As you wish, master," the Executor answered.
Jistap turned to Bakes. "I like the Executor's new attitude. You hadn't informed me of this part of the program."
Bakes nodded in reply. "I'm glad your pleased. May I go now sir?" Jistap nooded. As soon as Bakes had left the room, he exploded into uncontainable laughter.
"I've read your report on the situation with The Watchers. It seems events have taken quite an unpredictable turn."
"It caught me off guard as well sir. Do you think Jistap posses a threat to our plan?"
"At present, I don't see how we can lose. We won't have the element of surprise anymore, but we are still practically invincible. You don't think they had anything to with this?"
The other shook his head. "Unlikely. To the best of our knowledge, they don't even know about The Watchers. If they did, they would have wiped them out long ago."
"Yes, they seem to have become rather lazy lately. Well no matter, we will keep an eye on The Watcher situation. It looks like they might even help us though." Pausing to consider the ridiculousness of his own words, he chuckled for a minute. "Not that we need the help of course."
"You realize, sir, that once our mission is accomplished, we'll have to put an end to The Watchers."
"Oh of course, of course. But at this point in the game they can't do much damage. We'll be keeping an eye on them. You are dismissed."
The receiver of the orders saluted and left. "We'll be keeping an eye on them," his commander repeated.
The ship slowly glided to the ground, at the north pole. Hans leaped out and looked around for any clues he could find. He had not been able to locate Rodens ship with his sensors, but if Rodens wanted to, he could have made his ship invisible to the sensors. Hans completed his visual scan of the area, and did not see any signs of life. His sensors had identified that there were several Icelers in the vicinity, so Hans called out. He received no response. He called out again and had the same result. Hans removed his computer from his pocket, and called up an Iceler phrase. "I'm here to help," he called out in Iceler. "I am Hans. I wish you no harm." A cry came out in response. Hans sprinted toward the cry, and after clearing a small hill, saw that it had originated from a cave, one of several. Hans dashed into the cave. "Hello! Hello!" Hans called out the greetings that were the same in Iceler language as well as his. Several figures came from inside the cave and stood several meters away from Hans. One pushed his way through the others and walked up to Hans. Hans immediately recognized him as Mora.
"Take back this gift, for I have no desire to possess a gift of friendship from one who kills my people." Mora thrust Hans scarf back into his hands.
Hans head pounded as his worst fears were being confirmed. "Your people were killed by-" Hans suddenly stopped, the words stuck in his throat. "By one of my people?"
Mora's tone softened, as did his expression. Apparently he realized that Hans wasn't quite sure what was going on. "He came in a ship, like the ones you used to transport us here, only much smaller. Fire shot out of it. It melted my people as soon as it touched them. We all scattered for shelter, as the fire continued to fall. Once we were all safe in the caves, the ship flew away, maybe to kill more Icelers."
Hans could stand no longer, and slowly sank to a sitting position, leaning against the wall of the cave. He felt nauseous, sweat gathered on his hands and forehead. His whole body seemed to burn with heat even though it was bitterly cold. His head rolled to his side, and for the first time he was able to clearly see the expressions of the other Icelers. A rather inquisitive look was on their faces, since they could not understand all of the pidgin Iceler that had exchanged between the two. Hans himself had to have the computer translating throughout the entire conversation in order to understand all of what was being said to him. Hans was still a little confused, but he understood enough. His best friend was a murderer and had betrayed The Watchers. Finally, when Hans had gathered up the strength, he asked, "how many were killed?"
"About twenty, more are wounded."
"Wounded?" Hans was surprised. The weapons on the ship were powerful enough to melt an Iceler no matter where the blast hit him. How could an Iceler only be wounded? Mora must have seen the confusion in Hans eyes, for he beckoned for him to follow. He lead Hans deeper into the cave, though still close enough to the entrance to allow light to pass through. Hans was repulsed by the deformed bodies he saw lying along the side of the cave. He realized then that if a heat blast struck next to an Iceler, the heat was powerful enough to travel through the ground and contact the Iceler. The heat would then warp the victims body, if not killing him. Hans estimated a heat blast could warp a body up to five meters away. Tears came to his eyes as Hans observed the wounded. Little children who would be crippled the rest of their lives. Young woman who looked like they were quite beautiful before heat had destroyed their bodies. Young men whose youth had been suddenly destroyed, all of these suffering side by side. The words of Mora lingered in Hans' mind, 'Once we were all safe in the caves, the ship flew away, maybe to kill more Icelers.'
"No," Hans screamed aloud. "This ends now." Without a word of explanation Hans sprinted out of the cave and ran full speed towards his ship. Mora was right on his heels. As he entered the ship, Hans turned to talk to Mora. "Will you come with me?" he asked.
"No, my people need me here. I would not be of much help to you anyway, but I can tell you he went that way." Mora pointed South.
Hans nodded his thanks. "Take back this scarf," he said, throwing it to Mora. "We are still friends."
"You keep it Hans," Mora said, throwing it back. "If you're going to stay in this weather long, you'll need it more than I do."
Hans was forced to agree with this, and was about to take off, when an idea struck him. He called out to Mora, who was already walking back to his cave, and beckoned him to come back.
Hans took a rather large firearm from his box of weapons. It was heavy, the whole thing weighed about thirty five kilograms. It was about as long as Hans' arm, and had two straps that could be tied around the arm of the user. "This," said Hans, "is a laser rifle. It isn't quite as strong as the lasers on these ships, but it can pack quite a powerful punch. If the ship comes back, this can do some damage to it if you hit it, just make sure it's not me before you fire." Mora nodded, taking the weapon gently as Hans handed it to him. "I'll see you later, I hope," Hans called out as he shut the door to his ship. The warmth of the ship felt good to him after being out in the cold environment. Hans took off, and flew in the direction that Mora had pointed him to.
"We've got another problem, sir," Bakes said. "Rodens family has been deeply concerned with his disappearance. They have, as you probably guessed, tried to review his activities of the last few days with the Teachers help. Naturally they were surprised when that information came up classified. They began talking to their friends about it, and the story spread like wildfire. I'd be surprised if there is one Watcher that doesn't know about it. They're demanding an explanation."
"Tell them that information needed to be classified for security reasons, and we have no further comment at this time. If someone else should stumble upon some more classified information, tell them the same thing." Jistap voiced his orders confidently.
"But sir, we can't do that," Bakes argued. "You know as well as I do it's against Watcher law to classify anything. We'll be arrested."
"No we won't. You understand the computers better than any of the other Watchers. You have that program ready?"
"The program is ready sir," Bakes answered.
"What program?" Pericula asked.
Jistap smiled. "Oh, that's right. I've neglected to tell you about the little project Bakes and I have been working on. As soon as Bakes engages it, all computer commands will be under my control only. I will have-" Jistap checked himself. "We will have complete rule of the city. Neither the Teacher nor the Executor will do anything unless it is my will. On top of that, I have several young men who share my ideals, about a thousand to be exact, and they have been training for this day. They are my personal army."
Pericula exchanged confused glances with the other ten sitting at the table. "You told Hans we would turn ourselves in after the Icelers were safe. What are you talking about now?"
Jistap sighed and shook his head. "My dear, Hans was a young, foolish, idealist. I expected better out of you. You know yourself how prejudice and selfish our people can be. Rodens is a perfect example, and there are plenty who would follow in his footsteps if they were given the chance. I have great things in mind for the city, but I can not accomplish any of them democratically. The people would never agree to any of it."
"Just what do you have in mind?" Pericula asked, making no attempt to hide the contempt in her voice.
"Look at us!" Jistap waved his hand around the room. "From the day we were born, we've had every thing we wanted. We've never been hungry in our lives. Anything we desire, we can have the Executor make for us. There is no disease the Executor can't cure. Yet everyday, we watch on the monitors so much suffering in the world. Lands destroyed by war, ruthless dictators who kill right and left, people dying every day of disease, and hunger. Living their worthless lives in absolute poverty." Jistap's voice had gradually grown louder as he talked, but now it jumped into a shrieking yell. "And what do we do? What do we do about the misery we see all the time in the world? We sip a cup of tea and watch it happen. Oh, I've tried to correct the problem democratically," the word democratically was uttered sourly, "I've tried to follow the book. I've proposed changes, but nobody supports me. These people wouldn't even save the Icelers, because it would risk being discovered. Rodens is out their right now killing Icelers." Jistap ended his speech, his face burning red with anger. His breathing, slightly increased because of the shouting. A silence fell over the room for a couple of minutes. Then Jistap continued, much softer then before, almost a whisper. "Tonight, that will all end. My army will put me in power. I will begin my mission. We will fly food in our ships, and distribute it to whoever needs it. We will cure all those with diseases. We will stop all wars, and depose any undeserving ruler. An era of peace and happiness will follow that Fabulae has never known before. Who's with me?" Nine hands immediately shot up. Pericula the only one who didn't join.
"Still unconvinced to join my cause, Pericula? Are you just another selfish Watcher?"
"If that was so, I wouldn't have helped you save the Icelers."
"Alright, then what keeps you from joining me?"
"What happens when you die?"
"Pardon"
"I said, what happens when you die."
Jistap thought for a moment. "Why, someone will succeed me of course."
"Who?"
Jistap was forced to think again. "I don't know. Someone I pick who will continue my cause."
"But I thought you said all of the people are selfish."
Jistap did not like being made into a fool. "Just make your point," he growled.
Pericula took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Sir, the point is that if you destroy democracy, you'll have absolute power. I have no doubt that you will use your power wisely, but someday you'll die, and then who can be assured that the one after you will be just. Whoever succeeds you will have absolute control of the city, and whoever has absolute control of the city can conquer Fabulae if they want to, and use the whole world as nothing more then something to serve them hand and foot."
"I assure you I'll will pick my successor carefully."
"Oh, I'm sure you will sir. And anyone you pick will probably pick a worthy successor in turn. And his successor will pick a worthy successor also. But somewhere down the line, someone who is completely undeserving of the power will be picked. History is filled with such examples."
"I'll admit there is no guarantee that some where down the line, someone will do something undeserving with the power, but the danger is just as great that the inhabitants of the city will democratically try and conquer the world to serve themselves."
"No sir, the danger is not as great because in democracy someone is always representing the opposite side. Please, use democracy to introduce your new ideas. Don't give up, just be patient"
Jistap practically exploded. "Don't tell me to be patient. You tell the starving people to be patient. Tell the soldiers to be patient. Tell the diseased to be patient. They can't wait any longer. I'm going to act now. Your either with me or against me, and you don't want to be against me."
Pericula searched the room for support. Every face she met was hostile. In a dry voice she asked, "What exactly happens to me if I don't join you?"
"Oh, you'll be exiled I suspect. Maybe killed if you actively oppose me, but I hope it doesn't come to that. If you join me, I'll offer you power beyond your wildest dreams."
"I thought you weren't after power, just justice."
Jistap shrugged. "I'll need power to perform my tasks. Besides, with all the good I'm doing for the world, I don't think a little reward for myself is out of the question."
Pericula carefully considered her options. "Count me in," she said at last. A soft round of applause was given.
"Excellent. Bakes, the program." Bakes pressed a couple of buttons on his computer.
"It's all set," he said. "You have complete control."
Jistap laughed in delight, and couldn't restrain himself from standing up and doing a small dance. "Now," he giggled, "inform my army to begin taking control. Executor, render all energy discharging weapons useless, except those used by my army. Allow no one to replicate weapons, except my army."
"As you wish, master," the Executor answered.
Jistap turned to Bakes. "I like the Executor's new attitude. You hadn't informed me of this part of the program."
Bakes nodded in reply. "I'm glad your pleased. May I go now sir?" Jistap nooded. As soon as Bakes had left the room, he exploded into uncontainable laughter.
"I've read your report on the situation with The Watchers. It seems events have taken quite an unpredictable turn."
"It caught me off guard as well sir. Do you think Jistap posses a threat to our plan?"
"At present, I don't see how we can lose. We won't have the element of surprise anymore, but we are still practically invincible. You don't think they had anything to with this?"
The other shook his head. "Unlikely. To the best of our knowledge, they don't even know about The Watchers. If they did, they would have wiped them out long ago."
"Yes, they seem to have become rather lazy lately. Well no matter, we will keep an eye on The Watcher situation. It looks like they might even help us though." Pausing to consider the ridiculousness of his own words, he chuckled for a minute. "Not that we need the help of course."
"You realize, sir, that once our mission is accomplished, we'll have to put an end to The Watchers."
"Oh of course, of course. But at this point in the game they can't do much damage. We'll be keeping an eye on them. You are dismissed."
The receiver of the orders saluted and left. "We'll be keeping an eye on them," his commander repeated.
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Explaining Dishon and The Watchers
Original Idea
During my adolescence I was always writing some thing or another. Most of it never took off beyond a few pages. In 8th grade I had what I thought was a great idea about frogs who are made super-intelligent as part of a scientific experiment. The frogs become evil geniuses and build laser-shooting robots, which they use to try and take over the world with. I thought it was a great idea, but like all ideas it was a lot more fun to think about than it was to write. I barely got a few pages down, when I got bored and shelved it.
About 6 months later I was feeling like trying something else, and tried to think of an idea. I was into James Bond movies at the time, so the idea of doing something related to spies appealed to me. But I was also a big fantasy/mythological fan, so I wanted something set in the fantastical sword and sandal days. I figured I could combine the two. After all, they had spies in the ancient world as well, didn’t they?
Gradually the idea came to me of writing about a war. Being a teen-age boy, all of my literary projects tended to be somewhat violent, but I had never attempted an epic about a whole war before. I figured I could write about every aspect of the war: the kings making war and peace, the generals making battle plans, the ordinary men in the battle field, and of course the spies and counter-spies on both sides.
I set about making an outline for the plot. The morality was very clearly drawn. The good side was pure good. The bad side was pure evil. Looking back on it now this moral division is somewhat embarrassing, but when you’re 14 this is how you see the world. The comics and movies intended for 14 year olds seldom paint complex moral pictures. The same with young adult novels. Even American history is often presented as a story of good versus evil.
So in my story, one country was pure evil. The aggressor was the country of Marram, which was bent on aggressive conquest for its own sake. The king of Marram, Azom, could have easily been a stock villain from Saturday morning cartoons. I tried to make everything about him ooze pure evil. I even changed all the “s” sounds to “z” in Azom’s speech because I thought that sounded more sinister. (By the way, that seemingly simple decision turned out to be a nightmare with the spell-checker).
By contrast the country of Dishon was only fighting for self-defense. The people were not only fighting for their land, but for their very lives, and the lives of their families, since Marram put to the sword all that it conquered. I figured there could be no nobler cause. Also the tiny country of Dishon fighting against the huge emperor of Marram was a classic David versus Goliath story line, and everyone’s natural sympathy was with the underdog.
The third country involved in the war was Calet. Because Dishon knows that it does not stand a chance against Marram by itself, they bribe the king of Calet to join in the war against Marram.
In retrospect, this is one of the least believable parts of the story. It is absolutely ridiculous to think that a king would put his whole kingdom at risk all in return for more gold in the royal treasury. At the time though, it seemed believable enough to me. After all, there were many kings in mythology, like Midas, who would do anything for more gold. And in the Bible, Israel enlists Egypt’s aid against Assyria in part by giving gold to Egypt.
In fact, I chose the name “Calet”, because it sounds like “Egypt”. I was reading a book about ancient Egypt at the time, and I was fascinated by the description of Egypt during the Roman Empire. The book said that Egypt, although it had once been the most powerful nation on earth, was now being attacked on all sides by new nations, and was like a wounded boar being brought down by dogs on all sides.
I was interested in the idea of a crumbling empire giving way to a new emerging power. How did the people of an old glorious empire feel when they were forced to acknowledge the strength of a new country? Could they adjust to their new status as number 2?
Although the idea for Calet came from ancient Egypt, in many ways it resembles the old Roman Empire more. The idea is that Calet was so powerful it once conquered nearly the entire world. All of the nations in the story, Calet, Dishon, Marram, and even the Watchers and the Icelers (we’ll get to them later) speak a form of Caletian dialect, much as most of Europe speaks a variant of Latin.
Dishon 1-4
I was reading Livy’s history of the war with Hannibal about this period. I knew nothing about military strategy myself, but I had gotten it through my head that in the ancient world military success depended as much upon good strategy as it did on numbers and strength.
I therefore reasoned by extrapolation that if the military genius was great enough, no odds were impossible. No matter how great Marram’s army, Dishon could win if it only applied the right strategy.
I created the character of Perez, a character with a military genius so great, he never looses a battle. Since I knew absolutely nothing about military strategy myself, I couldn’t describe what Perez was doing, but instead simply made the statement that Perez’s plan was perfect.
Most of the story hinges on the genius of Perez. The outline of the story as I had originally planned it (not as it turns out) was this: Dishon finds out that Marram is planning to attack. King Recab of Dishon and his advisors have a meeting, and decide to bribe Calet to join them in the struggle. In Calet resides the great military genius Perez. Perez plans a perfect strategy, but he is foiled when one of his generals betrays him at the last moment. The king of Calet is killed, and the country breaks into civil war between a pro-Marram faction and a neutral faction.
Perez, disillusioned with the state of affairs in Calet, goes instead to Dishon where his military genius gives victory after victory to the tiny kingdom. Eventually however he is assassinated by spies. At about the same time the pro-Marram faction wins Calet’s civil war. Both Marram and Calet march on Dishon at once. Just when it looks like all is lost for the tiny country, every single man woman and child in Dishon march to defend the city. There is a spectacular battle, but by sheer determination and love of freedom the people of Dishon overcome incredible odds to defeat both nations. King Recab himself fights hand to hand with King Azom and is victorious. And the tiny kingdom is saved.
I didn’t finish it of course. I got 4 chapters into it (right after the defeat of Calet by Marram), and then ended up giving up on it.
The Comic Book Stage
It was about this time that I started reading a lot of comic books. What fascinated me about comics was the way each issue was a self-contained story, and yet several different story arcs would continue over many years. Also I thought it was cool the way characters from different series would interact with each other. Batman would sometimes appear in Superman comics, and vice versa. Instead of a bunch of different comics, it was as if the whole DC company was telling one long story.
I couldn’t draw, but I thought it would be fun to imitate the comic book style in my own writing. I would have several different series going at once. Each would have several different story arcs continuing over several issues. And the story lines from different series would periodically intersect with each other.
Although most comic books are set in a modern-urban environment, I had no problems with taking the comic-book way of story telling and adopting it to the classical fantasy setting. So I thought maybe this would be a good excuse to give another whack at finishing the Dishon story, which I had left sitting for several months.
The problem with my Dishon story wasn’t the setting but the story line. The Dishon story was an epic war story. I now wanted to write about a lot of mini interconnecting stories. And yet at the same time, it seemed a pity to start all over again from scratch when I already had 4 chapters written on Dishon.
I decided to keep working on the Dishon story. I would finish the original story line, and then any further adventures with the country of Dishon would follow the comic book format. At the same time, I would begin work on several other series.
I had a few ideas knocking around my head for other series I could do. None of them were terribly well thought out, but I thought about doing something with a group of animals that were endowed with super powers. Or one about a knight that wandered around from town to town helping people out. Or a series about a wolf pack that sometimes interacted with human beings. All of these would be separate story lines, and yet periodically cross over with each other.
All of these potential story lines fit in very nicely with the fantasy world already established in the Dishon series. Some of them might have taken inspiration from modern comics, but all of them took place in the ancient mythological “sword and sandal” world. But what if, hidden somewhere up in the mountains, there was a village of people who had super-futuristic technology? And what if they just stayed hidden away in this futuristic village, watching what happened in the primitive outside world, but never interfering?
Because this was the most ridiculous of all my ideas, this was the series I wanted to start on first. I had some sort of fascination with the bizarre. I thought it was kind of cool that all of the rest of the series would have the same theme, and then there would be this one really out there story line.
I never got started on any of the other story lines. It’s hard enough to write one story, let alone two at the same time. I just never felt like I had the time to start in on a 3rd story line. Eventually I got tired of even writing 2 at the same time, and made some clumsy attempts to combine them into the same story (but I’m getting ahead of myself).
At the beginning I was not concerned about where all the futuristic technology came from. Thousands of years ago a group of travelers simply stumbled into this abandoned futuristic city while crossing the mountains, and they have been living there every since.
Comparisons With Star Trek
The technology in the Watcher city very closely resembles “Star Trek”, of which I was an avid fan at the time. The computers in the city can replicate anything the Watcher’s desire, just like the replicators in “Star Trek”. And through the computers, they can watch anything happening in their city, or in the outside world, just like the computers in Star Trek. In fact if you’re an avid Star Trek fan, it should be very easy to picture the Watcher city. If you’re not, it may be a little confusing. Since I could picture the city perfectly in my head, I didn’t waste a lot of time describing it on the paper.
Actually the whole idea of “The Watchers” comes from a Star Trek episode with a very similar premise. I thought it had been my own idea, but then much later saw the episode re-run on TV, and remembered I had seen it before many years ago, and that elements of it most have stuck in my memory when I got the idea for “The Watchers.” (Specifically TNG: Who Watches the Watchers)
During my adolescence I was always writing some thing or another. Most of it never took off beyond a few pages. In 8th grade I had what I thought was a great idea about frogs who are made super-intelligent as part of a scientific experiment. The frogs become evil geniuses and build laser-shooting robots, which they use to try and take over the world with. I thought it was a great idea, but like all ideas it was a lot more fun to think about than it was to write. I barely got a few pages down, when I got bored and shelved it.
About 6 months later I was feeling like trying something else, and tried to think of an idea. I was into James Bond movies at the time, so the idea of doing something related to spies appealed to me. But I was also a big fantasy/mythological fan, so I wanted something set in the fantastical sword and sandal days. I figured I could combine the two. After all, they had spies in the ancient world as well, didn’t they?
Gradually the idea came to me of writing about a war. Being a teen-age boy, all of my literary projects tended to be somewhat violent, but I had never attempted an epic about a whole war before. I figured I could write about every aspect of the war: the kings making war and peace, the generals making battle plans, the ordinary men in the battle field, and of course the spies and counter-spies on both sides.
I set about making an outline for the plot. The morality was very clearly drawn. The good side was pure good. The bad side was pure evil. Looking back on it now this moral division is somewhat embarrassing, but when you’re 14 this is how you see the world. The comics and movies intended for 14 year olds seldom paint complex moral pictures. The same with young adult novels. Even American history is often presented as a story of good versus evil.
So in my story, one country was pure evil. The aggressor was the country of Marram, which was bent on aggressive conquest for its own sake. The king of Marram, Azom, could have easily been a stock villain from Saturday morning cartoons. I tried to make everything about him ooze pure evil. I even changed all the “s” sounds to “z” in Azom’s speech because I thought that sounded more sinister. (By the way, that seemingly simple decision turned out to be a nightmare with the spell-checker).
By contrast the country of Dishon was only fighting for self-defense. The people were not only fighting for their land, but for their very lives, and the lives of their families, since Marram put to the sword all that it conquered. I figured there could be no nobler cause. Also the tiny country of Dishon fighting against the huge emperor of Marram was a classic David versus Goliath story line, and everyone’s natural sympathy was with the underdog.
The third country involved in the war was Calet. Because Dishon knows that it does not stand a chance against Marram by itself, they bribe the king of Calet to join in the war against Marram.
In retrospect, this is one of the least believable parts of the story. It is absolutely ridiculous to think that a king would put his whole kingdom at risk all in return for more gold in the royal treasury. At the time though, it seemed believable enough to me. After all, there were many kings in mythology, like Midas, who would do anything for more gold. And in the Bible, Israel enlists Egypt’s aid against Assyria in part by giving gold to Egypt.
In fact, I chose the name “Calet”, because it sounds like “Egypt”. I was reading a book about ancient Egypt at the time, and I was fascinated by the description of Egypt during the Roman Empire. The book said that Egypt, although it had once been the most powerful nation on earth, was now being attacked on all sides by new nations, and was like a wounded boar being brought down by dogs on all sides.
I was interested in the idea of a crumbling empire giving way to a new emerging power. How did the people of an old glorious empire feel when they were forced to acknowledge the strength of a new country? Could they adjust to their new status as number 2?
Although the idea for Calet came from ancient Egypt, in many ways it resembles the old Roman Empire more. The idea is that Calet was so powerful it once conquered nearly the entire world. All of the nations in the story, Calet, Dishon, Marram, and even the Watchers and the Icelers (we’ll get to them later) speak a form of Caletian dialect, much as most of Europe speaks a variant of Latin.
Dishon 1-4
I was reading Livy’s history of the war with Hannibal about this period. I knew nothing about military strategy myself, but I had gotten it through my head that in the ancient world military success depended as much upon good strategy as it did on numbers and strength.
I therefore reasoned by extrapolation that if the military genius was great enough, no odds were impossible. No matter how great Marram’s army, Dishon could win if it only applied the right strategy.
I created the character of Perez, a character with a military genius so great, he never looses a battle. Since I knew absolutely nothing about military strategy myself, I couldn’t describe what Perez was doing, but instead simply made the statement that Perez’s plan was perfect.
Most of the story hinges on the genius of Perez. The outline of the story as I had originally planned it (not as it turns out) was this: Dishon finds out that Marram is planning to attack. King Recab of Dishon and his advisors have a meeting, and decide to bribe Calet to join them in the struggle. In Calet resides the great military genius Perez. Perez plans a perfect strategy, but he is foiled when one of his generals betrays him at the last moment. The king of Calet is killed, and the country breaks into civil war between a pro-Marram faction and a neutral faction.
Perez, disillusioned with the state of affairs in Calet, goes instead to Dishon where his military genius gives victory after victory to the tiny kingdom. Eventually however he is assassinated by spies. At about the same time the pro-Marram faction wins Calet’s civil war. Both Marram and Calet march on Dishon at once. Just when it looks like all is lost for the tiny country, every single man woman and child in Dishon march to defend the city. There is a spectacular battle, but by sheer determination and love of freedom the people of Dishon overcome incredible odds to defeat both nations. King Recab himself fights hand to hand with King Azom and is victorious. And the tiny kingdom is saved.
I didn’t finish it of course. I got 4 chapters into it (right after the defeat of Calet by Marram), and then ended up giving up on it.
The Comic Book Stage
It was about this time that I started reading a lot of comic books. What fascinated me about comics was the way each issue was a self-contained story, and yet several different story arcs would continue over many years. Also I thought it was cool the way characters from different series would interact with each other. Batman would sometimes appear in Superman comics, and vice versa. Instead of a bunch of different comics, it was as if the whole DC company was telling one long story.
I couldn’t draw, but I thought it would be fun to imitate the comic book style in my own writing. I would have several different series going at once. Each would have several different story arcs continuing over several issues. And the story lines from different series would periodically intersect with each other.
Although most comic books are set in a modern-urban environment, I had no problems with taking the comic-book way of story telling and adopting it to the classical fantasy setting. So I thought maybe this would be a good excuse to give another whack at finishing the Dishon story, which I had left sitting for several months.
The problem with my Dishon story wasn’t the setting but the story line. The Dishon story was an epic war story. I now wanted to write about a lot of mini interconnecting stories. And yet at the same time, it seemed a pity to start all over again from scratch when I already had 4 chapters written on Dishon.
I decided to keep working on the Dishon story. I would finish the original story line, and then any further adventures with the country of Dishon would follow the comic book format. At the same time, I would begin work on several other series.
I had a few ideas knocking around my head for other series I could do. None of them were terribly well thought out, but I thought about doing something with a group of animals that were endowed with super powers. Or one about a knight that wandered around from town to town helping people out. Or a series about a wolf pack that sometimes interacted with human beings. All of these would be separate story lines, and yet periodically cross over with each other.
All of these potential story lines fit in very nicely with the fantasy world already established in the Dishon series. Some of them might have taken inspiration from modern comics, but all of them took place in the ancient mythological “sword and sandal” world. But what if, hidden somewhere up in the mountains, there was a village of people who had super-futuristic technology? And what if they just stayed hidden away in this futuristic village, watching what happened in the primitive outside world, but never interfering?
Because this was the most ridiculous of all my ideas, this was the series I wanted to start on first. I had some sort of fascination with the bizarre. I thought it was kind of cool that all of the rest of the series would have the same theme, and then there would be this one really out there story line.
I never got started on any of the other story lines. It’s hard enough to write one story, let alone two at the same time. I just never felt like I had the time to start in on a 3rd story line. Eventually I got tired of even writing 2 at the same time, and made some clumsy attempts to combine them into the same story (but I’m getting ahead of myself).
At the beginning I was not concerned about where all the futuristic technology came from. Thousands of years ago a group of travelers simply stumbled into this abandoned futuristic city while crossing the mountains, and they have been living there every since.
Comparisons With Star Trek
The technology in the Watcher city very closely resembles “Star Trek”, of which I was an avid fan at the time. The computers in the city can replicate anything the Watcher’s desire, just like the replicators in “Star Trek”. And through the computers, they can watch anything happening in their city, or in the outside world, just like the computers in Star Trek. In fact if you’re an avid Star Trek fan, it should be very easy to picture the Watcher city. If you’re not, it may be a little confusing. Since I could picture the city perfectly in my head, I didn’t waste a lot of time describing it on the paper.
Actually the whole idea of “The Watchers” comes from a Star Trek episode with a very similar premise. I thought it had been my own idea, but then much later saw the episode re-run on TV, and remembered I had seen it before many years ago, and that elements of it most have stuck in my memory when I got the idea for “The Watchers.” (Specifically TNG: Who Watches the Watchers)
[I think what happened is that I saw Who Watches the Watchers back in 1989 when it was first shown on TV, and then didn't see it again for several years afterwards. This being in the days before the Internet and Wikipedia, a lot of these old Star Trek episodes were floating around in my subconscious, but I couldn't remember them clearly consciously. I think I first came up with the idea of The Watchers when I was in 10th grade, so it was about 4 or 5 years after I had seen Who Watches the Watchers. I had some vague memories of a TNG episode with a similar premise, but didn't realize how much I had ripped it off until years later. All that being said, I also wasn't overly concerned about ripping stuff off at this stage in my life. This was, after all, a story that I was writing in my bedroom for my own amusement. I thought there was story potential in the idea of a technologically advanced civilization that was watching everything that was happening in this medieval fantasy world, and so I borrowed the idea.]
Because I was a little embarrassed about how much of “The Watchers” was ripped off from Star Trek, I made a couple clumsy attempts to give things my own twists. For example I couldn’t have everyone running around with “phasers” because that would have been way too obvious. And yet I thought “laser guns” sounded too cartoonish. At first the characters use “a burner” which sends heat waves that severely burn the victim. After a few chapters, I got sick of writing about the burner, and just swallowed my pride and substituted a laser gun.
I’m not sure how a laser gun really works, which is one of the reasons I was reluctant to use it. In my story, a laser gun hit anywhere on the body is an instant kill. A burner, on the other hand, will only severely burn the victim, and there is the possibility of survival
The computers work much the way as the computers in Star Trek. When the characters want something, they speak into the air, and the computers obey. I thought the comparison would be too obvious if my characters addressed the computer simply by calling it “computer”, as in Star Trek. So, I divided the computer into two different entities. When the characters want the computer to teach them about something, they must ask for “The Teacher.” If they want the computers to do something, they must ask for “The Executor”.
And lastly: obviously having “transporter beams” would have been too obvious of a Star Trek rip off, so I invented the Super-Elevators which can whisk my characters anywhere in the city within seconds. That only works for inside the city though. When they leave the city, they must fly in their shuttles.
Plot Structure
After I had decided on the comic book structure, I went and re-printed the first four chapters of Dishon as if they were each issues of a comic book. I made up a cover page and a cheesy title for each one. I decided to name the whole mythical world “Fabulae” after the Latin word for stories, and so both the “Dishon” story and “The Watchers” story were part of the Fabulae series.
Aside from the fact that I was now calling my chapters “issues”, the Dishon story didn’t change all that much. I was still working on my war epic.
Even for “The Watcher” series, I never really attained what I had originally envisioned. I decided that 4 pages would equal an issue. That was really all I could write in a week anyway. But 4 pages was way too short to write a story in. So the idea of a string of self-contained, and yet inter-related stories, never exactly worked out.
However I tried to imitate comic books in another way.
Many of the comic book series I was reading at the time were jugging multiple subplots at once (usually involving minor characters.) These subplots would boil for months or years in the background before emerging to effect the main story (or sometimes quietly disappearing.)
I wanted this in my own story. I wanted to have several different subplots going on at once in a story that gradually got more and more complex.
It was an ambitious attempt at least. The thing I didn't realize at the time was just how much work and careful plotting was required to keep all these subplots from stepping on each other. And this is the problem I soon developed. The problem was I never really planned out where any of my subplots were going.
When I first started “Dishon”, I wrote out the whole plot first. This was how my 8th grade English teacher had taught us we were supposed to write a novel. But that made it extremely boring for me to write. What’s the fun of creating a story if I already know how it’s going to end? So I deliberately avoided doing this when writing “The Watchers.”
The problem is, as I tried to juggle several plot lines at once, the plots didn’t so much compliment each other as cancel each other out. I’d have one plot going, I’d try and introduce another plot to make things more complicated, and I’d find that the new plot now made the old plot obsolete.
There is also the problem of the difference between the time it took me to write it and the time it takes someone to read it. A chapter a week was pretty common for me. Sometimes I’d miss a week. And when I got discouraged sometimes I would leave the work untouched for a couple months.
Therefore it seemed to me while I was writing it that a single plot line had simmered on for about a month now, and it was time to shake things out by adding a new plot. However, when read all in one sitting (and especially when skimmed over), it seems as if one plot is barely getting started, when all of a sudden the story takes a wild turn in another direction.
Also I now regarded each issue as a finished work. I’d go over it once for spelling errors, (you may note I missed a few), and then it was already “issued” and I couldn’t revise it as if I was writing a novel. Any plot strings that didn’t work out I would have to leave just as they were. If I discovered I was taking the story in a direction that didn’t make any sense, rather than re-write it, I had to make some sort of clumsy attempt to redirect the story back on path in the following issues. The finished issues were off-limits.
Anyway, I’ll point out specific examples of this as we go through the story. But this is just the structure I was operating under which explains in general why the story gets so confusing.
The Watchers
The first issue of “The Watchers” breaks chronology briefly to explain how a thousand years ago, these humans happened to stumble upon the hidden city. They are fleeing exiles from Calet who, while crossing the mountains, are attacked by the Icelers. While trying to defend themselves, they fall into the buried city.
The Icelers are beings of human shape made entirely out of ice. They may be the cheesiest characters I’ve ever created, but in a way deliberately so. One of the things I’ve always liked about Greek mythology is the way everything is personified. The river, the trees, the winds, everything is a character in the story. I wanted to imitate that in my own fantasy writing. Even the ice becomes a character.
In the first issue the Icelers are portrayed as monsters, and I was originally intending to make them the villains of “The Watcher” story. But the more I thought about it, I decided they would make terrible villains. They were way to easy to kill. The Watchers, with their futuristic technology, simply had to shoot a heat ray or something into the Iceler and melt it.
So I thought it would be more interesting to make the Icelers victims. What if one Watcher was to go a little bit insane and start shooting heat rays and throwing heat bombs at innocent Icelers? And then another Watcher would have to protect the Icelers.
I started to think about what would drive a Watcher to go out and start attacking Icelers. Since the Watchers kept to themselves in their city hidden inside the mountain, they normally wouldn’t have any contact with the Icelers who were wandering around on the mountains surface.
In the 2nd chapter a freak accident causes the Watcher technology to mal-function, and the mountain starts to gradually heat up as a result. All the Icelers have to be evacuated, or they will die. But the Watchers have grown to value their secrecy so much, that many of them don’t want to emerge into the outside world even for the purpose of saving the Icelers. The main spokesman for this sentiment is Rodens
I was writing this in 1993, and the 1992 presidential campaign was still fresh in my mind. My political understanding was very limited then, but I do remember hearing several commercials on the radio for Pat Buchanan’s campaign. Pat Buchanan, you may remember, was running on the platform of “putting America first,” and cutting back on foreign aid to other countries.
Much of America’s foreign aid budget is military to allies like Israel, but that’s not how Pat Buchanan framed the debate. He usually talked about cutting back on aid to development projects. I imagined Pat Buchanan was talking about cutting back aid to starving people in Africa. I thought it was horrifying that someone would suggest such a thing, and even more horrifying that it would get so much support. So, I made Pat Buchanan the villain of my story by putting his words in Rodens’ mouth. I didn’t have a transcript of Buchanan’s speeches in front of me, but tried to imitate them as best I could remember. When I could remember exact quotes, I used those. For instance, on Pat Buchanan’s campaign commercials he would say, “There’s nothing wrong with putting America first.” I simply substituted “the Watchers” for America and put the phrase into Rodens’ mouth.
The scary thing about Pat Buchanan’s rhetoric of course is that it has so many supporters. So I imagined in The Watcher city there would be a lot of support for this kind of rhetoric as well. Rodens’ ideas are very popular. And yet at the town meeting, the city votes in favor to save the Icelers.
Our hero Hans is initially puzzled by this result, but later finds out that the idealistic Watcher President Jistap rigged the vote in order to save the Icelers. Hans has a moral dilemma about whether it is acceptable to subvert the democratic process in order to save lives. The debate is continued in chapter 4 when Rodens learns that the vote has been subverted.
Obviously this story would be a lot different if I wrote it today. This was before the Florida debacle in the 2000 election. This was also before I learned about the Senate Church Committee meetings, or Cointel, or the many other un-democratic things our country has done.
At the time I had a much more innocent view of American government, which was influenced by my 8th grade civics class and my junior high American History courses. I believed that in our 200-year history, we have had a flawless democracy. Even the Watergate break in seemed like proof the system works because the bad guys were soon caught and punished.
I thought that if somehow the democratic process were to be subverted even once, the damage would be permanent because it would set a precedent, and people would loose their faith in our democracy. I thought the same was true of The Watchers democracy. Because the democratic vote had one time been tampered with, it had the potential to ruin the democracy forever. That is why there is a lot of hyperbolic rhetoric by the characters about the destruction of democracy. This is also partly why Rodens over-reacts like he does, although I had always meant to set him up as an unstable character from the beginning.
What intrigued me about this part of the story is that it was a moral quandary that I myself was unsure of who was in the right. Was President Jistap right by saving Icelers, or was Rodens right by wanting to save democracy? My writing up until this point had always been pure good versus pure evil, but I began to enjoy the complexity of this situation, and throughout the story would try and set up similar moral dilemmas, some of which got a bit cheesy.
Dishon 5-10
During this time I was also continuing on with my story about Dishon. Dishon was a lot more boring for me because I had already written the plot out, so I knew where it was headed. For “The Watchers” on the other hand I had no idea what was going to happen, and was eager to find out. I started thinking of the weeks when I wrote for “Dishon” as just a chore that had to be done so I could get back to “The Watchers.”
My original plot outline called for the civil war in Calet to be a small sub-plot that was happening off scene. We find out the civil war begins in chapter 5, but then I wasn’t planning on returning to Calet until after the civil war was over.
But, because the story in Dishon was interesting me less and less, I started to write most of the time about the civil war in Calet. I began to develop intrigues on both sides. I decided Polad’s adviser, Dabine, was secretly aiding Miktesh. This was never stated outright, but hinted at. For instance the reason Miktesh escaped in chapter 5 was because Dabine allowed him.
Miktesh’s advisor, Jole, after becoming discouraged with Miktesh’s tactics, starts secretly aiding Polad. But then Jole is killed by Dabine in chapter 8. (Again, Dabine isn’t identified by name. I was originally planning on keeping Dabine’s loyalties a secret until the end of the story).
By the time we arrive at chapters 9 and 10, the story deals almost exclusively with Calet, or more specifically, Miktesh’s faction. In chapter 9, we find out that Perez had a son, Drusus, who was in Miktesh’s camp. Again, this was another detail I hadn’t originally planned out, but I though it would make things more interesting.
I was reading Tacitus history of Rome at the time, and enjoyed the story about how the historical Drusus was able to talk his soldiers out of a mutiny. I wanted to create a character like Drusus in my story: a young, honorable, tough soldier, who will go for any lengths for the good of his fellow soldiers.
Naturally I had to explain why Drusus had been estranged from his father Perez, and Drusus tells the whole story to Miktesh. My inspiration for this was “The Chosen”. I don’t remember it well, but there is a passage in “The Chosen” where one of the characters asks his father a question about another character, and the father says something like, “to answer that question, I have to first explain to you what happened to our people 1000 years ago.”
Something like that. I’m not remembering it well. But I do remember that I was fascinated by the idea of an event in distant history having a direct affect on people in the 20th century. I wanted to imitate that. I wanted to see if I could somehow design a story so that something that happened 500 years previous was the direct reason why today Drusus does not get along with his father.
And that was pretty much my only guideline for writing this long-winded flashback. Since I was trying to imitate “The Chosen”, the history of the Nathor race at times very closely resembles the history of the Jewish race. But the other stuff I just made up as I typed, which is why it is so bizarre and needlessly long. The flashback part ends up taking up almost two whole chapters.
The Watchers 5-7
Jistap imprisons Rodens to prevent him from exposing the voting fraud. Rodens is so angry at his unjust imprisonment that it causes him to lose what little sanity he had left. He manages to inflict injuries on himself, then escape when the guard comes to check on him.
Rodens, insane with rage, decides to take his revenge on the Icelers by melting them. Hans is sent to stop Rodens. While Hans is gone, Jistap and his team decide to consolidate their power by officially ending democratic rule in the city, and establishing Jistap as the dictator.
This is a classic example of the plot framework I mentioned earlier. While Hans was leaving the city to fight Rodens, I decided to make things more exciting by having Jistap grab power at home while Hans was gone. Jistap and his team had shown no previous inclination towards desiring a complete dictatorship, and I wasn’t originally planning this, but I figured after they had already fixed the vote, it wasn’t a big step for them to take power completely.
However I didn’t plan this out very well, and this is a classic example of one plot line canceling another out instead of supplementing it. If Jistap has officially taken power anyway, why does Hans have to sneak around in one ship when Jistap can just send the whole fleet? Therefore shortly after this Rodens was apprehended, and the whole Rodens section of the plot fizzled out.
In addition to Jistap there were 13 other members of his team (including Hans). I chose the number 13 because it was unlucky, and a foreshadowed a sense of disaster (although again, I hadn’t planned out the plot in advance, so I didn’t really know where it was heading myself). However, I sometimes forgot if the number 13 included Jistap, or if there were 13 members of the team plus Jistap. You might notice the math varies from chapter to chapter.
Also, the epitome of lazy writing, I felt like it was too much trouble to sit down and think of 13 other people all at once. So I just introduced characters as I needed them. By the end of the story all 13 are named and identified, but in the beginning I only identified a couple of them by name. Therefore whenever the 13 are meeting, I can only use the names of the characters I’ve already identified. The rest of them are mysteriously silent.
Later in the story, when all of the 13 are finally identified, it turns out some of them are extremely opinionated and vocal, and begs the question: where were they in the earlier chapters?
I was somewhat thinking of Julius Caesar when I wrote this part. Some of the more sympathetic biographies of Julius Caesar claim that he wasn’t power hungry, he just had a lot of reforms he wanted to get through, and he was frustrated with the way the Senate kept blocking him. So he took power for himself, but then he used that power to push through a lot of reforms that benefited the average soldier and the average farmer, people who had been neglected by the senate aristocracy.
But ultimately, the imperial system that Caesar started gave birth to monsters like Nero and Caligula. I always used to think that maybe, if someone would have just explained that to Caesar, maybe history could have been different. I used to imagine Caesar’s responses: “I’ll be sure to pick a worthy successor. And anyone I pick as a successor will be smart enough to pick a worthy successor himself.” And I would try and explain to Caesar that ultimately he would run out of good men, and the abuse of power would be inevitable.
This was something I often thought about, so I just worked that dialogue into the story in the conversation between Pericula and Jistap.
In an attempt to complicate the plot even further, I added a couple more details. Although Jistap was the leader, all of his power came from Bakes, who was the only one who knew how to manipulate the computers which ran the city. Bakes laughs after leaving Jistap, which I intended to indicate Bakes was not being completely honest.
Also at the very end there is a mysterious conversation between two unidentified people, which hints at more complications to come.
Because I was a little embarrassed about how much of “The Watchers” was ripped off from Star Trek, I made a couple clumsy attempts to give things my own twists. For example I couldn’t have everyone running around with “phasers” because that would have been way too obvious. And yet I thought “laser guns” sounded too cartoonish. At first the characters use “a burner” which sends heat waves that severely burn the victim. After a few chapters, I got sick of writing about the burner, and just swallowed my pride and substituted a laser gun.
I’m not sure how a laser gun really works, which is one of the reasons I was reluctant to use it. In my story, a laser gun hit anywhere on the body is an instant kill. A burner, on the other hand, will only severely burn the victim, and there is the possibility of survival
The computers work much the way as the computers in Star Trek. When the characters want something, they speak into the air, and the computers obey. I thought the comparison would be too obvious if my characters addressed the computer simply by calling it “computer”, as in Star Trek. So, I divided the computer into two different entities. When the characters want the computer to teach them about something, they must ask for “The Teacher.” If they want the computers to do something, they must ask for “The Executor”.
And lastly: obviously having “transporter beams” would have been too obvious of a Star Trek rip off, so I invented the Super-Elevators which can whisk my characters anywhere in the city within seconds. That only works for inside the city though. When they leave the city, they must fly in their shuttles.
Plot Structure
After I had decided on the comic book structure, I went and re-printed the first four chapters of Dishon as if they were each issues of a comic book. I made up a cover page and a cheesy title for each one. I decided to name the whole mythical world “Fabulae” after the Latin word for stories, and so both the “Dishon” story and “The Watchers” story were part of the Fabulae series.
Aside from the fact that I was now calling my chapters “issues”, the Dishon story didn’t change all that much. I was still working on my war epic.
Even for “The Watcher” series, I never really attained what I had originally envisioned. I decided that 4 pages would equal an issue. That was really all I could write in a week anyway. But 4 pages was way too short to write a story in. So the idea of a string of self-contained, and yet inter-related stories, never exactly worked out.
However I tried to imitate comic books in another way.
Many of the comic book series I was reading at the time were jugging multiple subplots at once (usually involving minor characters.) These subplots would boil for months or years in the background before emerging to effect the main story (or sometimes quietly disappearing.)
I wanted this in my own story. I wanted to have several different subplots going on at once in a story that gradually got more and more complex.
It was an ambitious attempt at least. The thing I didn't realize at the time was just how much work and careful plotting was required to keep all these subplots from stepping on each other. And this is the problem I soon developed. The problem was I never really planned out where any of my subplots were going.
When I first started “Dishon”, I wrote out the whole plot first. This was how my 8th grade English teacher had taught us we were supposed to write a novel. But that made it extremely boring for me to write. What’s the fun of creating a story if I already know how it’s going to end? So I deliberately avoided doing this when writing “The Watchers.”
The problem is, as I tried to juggle several plot lines at once, the plots didn’t so much compliment each other as cancel each other out. I’d have one plot going, I’d try and introduce another plot to make things more complicated, and I’d find that the new plot now made the old plot obsolete.
There is also the problem of the difference between the time it took me to write it and the time it takes someone to read it. A chapter a week was pretty common for me. Sometimes I’d miss a week. And when I got discouraged sometimes I would leave the work untouched for a couple months.
Therefore it seemed to me while I was writing it that a single plot line had simmered on for about a month now, and it was time to shake things out by adding a new plot. However, when read all in one sitting (and especially when skimmed over), it seems as if one plot is barely getting started, when all of a sudden the story takes a wild turn in another direction.
Also I now regarded each issue as a finished work. I’d go over it once for spelling errors, (you may note I missed a few), and then it was already “issued” and I couldn’t revise it as if I was writing a novel. Any plot strings that didn’t work out I would have to leave just as they were. If I discovered I was taking the story in a direction that didn’t make any sense, rather than re-write it, I had to make some sort of clumsy attempt to redirect the story back on path in the following issues. The finished issues were off-limits.
Anyway, I’ll point out specific examples of this as we go through the story. But this is just the structure I was operating under which explains in general why the story gets so confusing.
The Watchers
The first issue of “The Watchers” breaks chronology briefly to explain how a thousand years ago, these humans happened to stumble upon the hidden city. They are fleeing exiles from Calet who, while crossing the mountains, are attacked by the Icelers. While trying to defend themselves, they fall into the buried city.
The Icelers are beings of human shape made entirely out of ice. They may be the cheesiest characters I’ve ever created, but in a way deliberately so. One of the things I’ve always liked about Greek mythology is the way everything is personified. The river, the trees, the winds, everything is a character in the story. I wanted to imitate that in my own fantasy writing. Even the ice becomes a character.
In the first issue the Icelers are portrayed as monsters, and I was originally intending to make them the villains of “The Watcher” story. But the more I thought about it, I decided they would make terrible villains. They were way to easy to kill. The Watchers, with their futuristic technology, simply had to shoot a heat ray or something into the Iceler and melt it.
So I thought it would be more interesting to make the Icelers victims. What if one Watcher was to go a little bit insane and start shooting heat rays and throwing heat bombs at innocent Icelers? And then another Watcher would have to protect the Icelers.
I started to think about what would drive a Watcher to go out and start attacking Icelers. Since the Watchers kept to themselves in their city hidden inside the mountain, they normally wouldn’t have any contact with the Icelers who were wandering around on the mountains surface.
In the 2nd chapter a freak accident causes the Watcher technology to mal-function, and the mountain starts to gradually heat up as a result. All the Icelers have to be evacuated, or they will die. But the Watchers have grown to value their secrecy so much, that many of them don’t want to emerge into the outside world even for the purpose of saving the Icelers. The main spokesman for this sentiment is Rodens
I was writing this in 1993, and the 1992 presidential campaign was still fresh in my mind. My political understanding was very limited then, but I do remember hearing several commercials on the radio for Pat Buchanan’s campaign. Pat Buchanan, you may remember, was running on the platform of “putting America first,” and cutting back on foreign aid to other countries.
Much of America’s foreign aid budget is military to allies like Israel, but that’s not how Pat Buchanan framed the debate. He usually talked about cutting back on aid to development projects. I imagined Pat Buchanan was talking about cutting back aid to starving people in Africa. I thought it was horrifying that someone would suggest such a thing, and even more horrifying that it would get so much support. So, I made Pat Buchanan the villain of my story by putting his words in Rodens’ mouth. I didn’t have a transcript of Buchanan’s speeches in front of me, but tried to imitate them as best I could remember. When I could remember exact quotes, I used those. For instance, on Pat Buchanan’s campaign commercials he would say, “There’s nothing wrong with putting America first.” I simply substituted “the Watchers” for America and put the phrase into Rodens’ mouth.
The scary thing about Pat Buchanan’s rhetoric of course is that it has so many supporters. So I imagined in The Watcher city there would be a lot of support for this kind of rhetoric as well. Rodens’ ideas are very popular. And yet at the town meeting, the city votes in favor to save the Icelers.
Our hero Hans is initially puzzled by this result, but later finds out that the idealistic Watcher President Jistap rigged the vote in order to save the Icelers. Hans has a moral dilemma about whether it is acceptable to subvert the democratic process in order to save lives. The debate is continued in chapter 4 when Rodens learns that the vote has been subverted.
Obviously this story would be a lot different if I wrote it today. This was before the Florida debacle in the 2000 election. This was also before I learned about the Senate Church Committee meetings, or Cointel, or the many other un-democratic things our country has done.
At the time I had a much more innocent view of American government, which was influenced by my 8th grade civics class and my junior high American History courses. I believed that in our 200-year history, we have had a flawless democracy. Even the Watergate break in seemed like proof the system works because the bad guys were soon caught and punished.
I thought that if somehow the democratic process were to be subverted even once, the damage would be permanent because it would set a precedent, and people would loose their faith in our democracy. I thought the same was true of The Watchers democracy. Because the democratic vote had one time been tampered with, it had the potential to ruin the democracy forever. That is why there is a lot of hyperbolic rhetoric by the characters about the destruction of democracy. This is also partly why Rodens over-reacts like he does, although I had always meant to set him up as an unstable character from the beginning.
What intrigued me about this part of the story is that it was a moral quandary that I myself was unsure of who was in the right. Was President Jistap right by saving Icelers, or was Rodens right by wanting to save democracy? My writing up until this point had always been pure good versus pure evil, but I began to enjoy the complexity of this situation, and throughout the story would try and set up similar moral dilemmas, some of which got a bit cheesy.
Dishon 5-10
During this time I was also continuing on with my story about Dishon. Dishon was a lot more boring for me because I had already written the plot out, so I knew where it was headed. For “The Watchers” on the other hand I had no idea what was going to happen, and was eager to find out. I started thinking of the weeks when I wrote for “Dishon” as just a chore that had to be done so I could get back to “The Watchers.”
My original plot outline called for the civil war in Calet to be a small sub-plot that was happening off scene. We find out the civil war begins in chapter 5, but then I wasn’t planning on returning to Calet until after the civil war was over.
But, because the story in Dishon was interesting me less and less, I started to write most of the time about the civil war in Calet. I began to develop intrigues on both sides. I decided Polad’s adviser, Dabine, was secretly aiding Miktesh. This was never stated outright, but hinted at. For instance the reason Miktesh escaped in chapter 5 was because Dabine allowed him.
Miktesh’s advisor, Jole, after becoming discouraged with Miktesh’s tactics, starts secretly aiding Polad. But then Jole is killed by Dabine in chapter 8. (Again, Dabine isn’t identified by name. I was originally planning on keeping Dabine’s loyalties a secret until the end of the story).
By the time we arrive at chapters 9 and 10, the story deals almost exclusively with Calet, or more specifically, Miktesh’s faction. In chapter 9, we find out that Perez had a son, Drusus, who was in Miktesh’s camp. Again, this was another detail I hadn’t originally planned out, but I though it would make things more interesting.
I was reading Tacitus history of Rome at the time, and enjoyed the story about how the historical Drusus was able to talk his soldiers out of a mutiny. I wanted to create a character like Drusus in my story: a young, honorable, tough soldier, who will go for any lengths for the good of his fellow soldiers.
Naturally I had to explain why Drusus had been estranged from his father Perez, and Drusus tells the whole story to Miktesh. My inspiration for this was “The Chosen”. I don’t remember it well, but there is a passage in “The Chosen” where one of the characters asks his father a question about another character, and the father says something like, “to answer that question, I have to first explain to you what happened to our people 1000 years ago.”
Something like that. I’m not remembering it well. But I do remember that I was fascinated by the idea of an event in distant history having a direct affect on people in the 20th century. I wanted to imitate that. I wanted to see if I could somehow design a story so that something that happened 500 years previous was the direct reason why today Drusus does not get along with his father.
And that was pretty much my only guideline for writing this long-winded flashback. Since I was trying to imitate “The Chosen”, the history of the Nathor race at times very closely resembles the history of the Jewish race. But the other stuff I just made up as I typed, which is why it is so bizarre and needlessly long. The flashback part ends up taking up almost two whole chapters.
The Watchers 5-7
Jistap imprisons Rodens to prevent him from exposing the voting fraud. Rodens is so angry at his unjust imprisonment that it causes him to lose what little sanity he had left. He manages to inflict injuries on himself, then escape when the guard comes to check on him.
Rodens, insane with rage, decides to take his revenge on the Icelers by melting them. Hans is sent to stop Rodens. While Hans is gone, Jistap and his team decide to consolidate their power by officially ending democratic rule in the city, and establishing Jistap as the dictator.
This is a classic example of the plot framework I mentioned earlier. While Hans was leaving the city to fight Rodens, I decided to make things more exciting by having Jistap grab power at home while Hans was gone. Jistap and his team had shown no previous inclination towards desiring a complete dictatorship, and I wasn’t originally planning this, but I figured after they had already fixed the vote, it wasn’t a big step for them to take power completely.
However I didn’t plan this out very well, and this is a classic example of one plot line canceling another out instead of supplementing it. If Jistap has officially taken power anyway, why does Hans have to sneak around in one ship when Jistap can just send the whole fleet? Therefore shortly after this Rodens was apprehended, and the whole Rodens section of the plot fizzled out.
In addition to Jistap there were 13 other members of his team (including Hans). I chose the number 13 because it was unlucky, and a foreshadowed a sense of disaster (although again, I hadn’t planned out the plot in advance, so I didn’t really know where it was heading myself). However, I sometimes forgot if the number 13 included Jistap, or if there were 13 members of the team plus Jistap. You might notice the math varies from chapter to chapter.
Also, the epitome of lazy writing, I felt like it was too much trouble to sit down and think of 13 other people all at once. So I just introduced characters as I needed them. By the end of the story all 13 are named and identified, but in the beginning I only identified a couple of them by name. Therefore whenever the 13 are meeting, I can only use the names of the characters I’ve already identified. The rest of them are mysteriously silent.
Later in the story, when all of the 13 are finally identified, it turns out some of them are extremely opinionated and vocal, and begs the question: where were they in the earlier chapters?
I was somewhat thinking of Julius Caesar when I wrote this part. Some of the more sympathetic biographies of Julius Caesar claim that he wasn’t power hungry, he just had a lot of reforms he wanted to get through, and he was frustrated with the way the Senate kept blocking him. So he took power for himself, but then he used that power to push through a lot of reforms that benefited the average soldier and the average farmer, people who had been neglected by the senate aristocracy.
But ultimately, the imperial system that Caesar started gave birth to monsters like Nero and Caligula. I always used to think that maybe, if someone would have just explained that to Caesar, maybe history could have been different. I used to imagine Caesar’s responses: “I’ll be sure to pick a worthy successor. And anyone I pick as a successor will be smart enough to pick a worthy successor himself.” And I would try and explain to Caesar that ultimately he would run out of good men, and the abuse of power would be inevitable.
This was something I often thought about, so I just worked that dialogue into the story in the conversation between Pericula and Jistap.
In an attempt to complicate the plot even further, I added a couple more details. Although Jistap was the leader, all of his power came from Bakes, who was the only one who knew how to manipulate the computers which ran the city. Bakes laughs after leaving Jistap, which I intended to indicate Bakes was not being completely honest.
Also at the very end there is a mysterious conversation between two unidentified people, which hints at more complications to come.
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