"I rest my case in front of the council ", Zar Chrnos said.
The five council members looked at each other and then almost in unison looked back at Zar.
Member One said "Zar, we are aware of your liberalist tendencies. But surely you cannot be serious when you suggest that we abandon Nidar ?"
"Councilperson I will swear by my findings and I will swear by my conclusions. It is uneconomical to continue the war any longer. Even after including the socio-metric factors and the appropriate mass behavior dynamics we stand to lose more than we gain if we continue this ..., this ..., this action." Zar could never call it what the council maintained " Aggressive Pacifying", they called it.
All the members stared at Zar.
Member Three said, "You have written report for us ?"
"Yes I do and I believe that it is all you will need to read to be convinced", replied Zar. Ah his masterpiece and he had not even written it.
Member Five replied, "Then we will convene after we have read the report".
By mutual agreement the council broke up as Zar bowed and went away. He knew he was going to win because the empire valued words more than people's lives and he had for them words that would prove without doubt what he was saying. His mind went back to the report and he felt a tingle go through his spine. Undoubtedly they were perhaps the strongest words he had ever read and in his heart he knew that mights of empires would wobble when they were faced by words like these. And the people, Oh the power, the people the citizenry of Nidar, what people they were! He had been there where the words had been read and he had been electrified, he had lost his own identity, he who was a council rep and class 7 investigator, had lost his own identity and been electrified by those words and he had felt something that he never felt possible. He had felt the madness of freedom. He had almost given up his identity then and joined the Nidarians. No wonder so many field operatives had been lost. They had something that the technology of the whole empire could not subdue, erase maybe blast the oblivion out of it yes but subdue, never.
It was balmy night, he could hear the sickening sounds of the suck-detonates. Empire technology at its best, these devices imploded tearing apart organic matrix while material structures like building and natural features remained intact. Also Nidarians were type IV organism with extreme psychological sensitivity and empathy. Body dissection had shown highly developed hormonal secondary hormonal system. The could practically function on their glandular energy supply for days alone. Hence they were emotionally unbalanced people and the more organic waste i.e carnage of Nidarian dead-bodies the sooner the planet would fall - simple Empire logic to make the subjugation efficient. But they had failed, of course Nidar was no match for the empire technology but the war had been on for many Terran months now but Nidar kept on refusing to settle down. It seemed the only way to keep an area under the Empire control was to wipe out every single Nidarian and even they kept on coming back. For the first time in so many Terran years, empire strategy was failing. And the economic machines of the empire had kicked in. The controllers of the empire knew too much about chaos to let this butterfly flap its wings too much. Ordinary military operatives were sent and lost. So Zar, Class 7 investigator, had been sent to Nidar, incognito disguised as a perfect Nidarian. He was to find out weak spots in the Nidarian psychology based on first-hand observation and report back to the Council.
The local Council (it was more of a ragged street gang according to Zar, typical low evolute "Might is the leader" psychology at work) had convened a meeting at night. So far with whatever out-society reconnoitering he could gather, these nightly meeting seemed to figure high up in the reason of the almost indomitable wave of Nidarians that kept fighting back. Finally he had acclimatized himself enough to attend one meeting without raised eyebrows. The smell part had been difficult, Nidarians generated individual smells that worked subliminally for identification and Zar had to master the olfactory apparatus before he could generate specific general signals that put the Nidarians at ease.
The group was raggedy and really almost pitiable. Most of the active age-group were absent or killed in the war (Zar himself was disguised as an Old male). The leader was an old female somewhat past the active age-group but with a strong control-mentality (Zar was accomplished in organism behavioral indicators). More of the local populace was shuffling in. They were all in hard times he could see that. So at least the empires' decision to attack major nutrition centers was paying off. So why weren't they giving up?
The leader female raised her hand as a silence descended on the group. What was going to happen, here, prayers asking for their local deity-of-faith to grant them powers. Maybe that was how they were resisting. Then it would be a simple matter of some mental messaging and some messiah figure and Nidar would be theirs. Faith could get complicated but nothing the empire could not handle. But Zar suspected that the answer was not that simple.
"Loorna will read her message, Nuqar Mena!", said the female leader.
"Nuqar Mena", repeated Zar with the bunch. Nuqar Mena - Never Me in the ancient Nidarian tongue. Zar had seen it plastered across battle-fields.
A small female stood up. She was thin as stick and Zar could almost feel her weakness and an artificial empathy for her. What was this? Some sort of trained exhortation. But he felt it in the chemicals in the air, the atmosphere tensed. She began:
" I am Loorna, I am seven revolutions old. I was born free", a thin little high pitched voice came out her little mouth.
"She was born free", people recited and Zar was surprised to hear himself repeat it.
"I was raised by my mother, I was raised by my father, I was raised by my brothers. My father lies dead on the soil of Nidar. My mother lies dead on the soil of Nidar, My brothers fight for the soil of Nidar. My friends of young who built huts of sand with me on the shores of Menna lies strewn in the battle-fields. I saw my domus emptied of life by the Khragar", the intense hate put in those word was more painful than whips' edge as Zar almost winced. He was disconcerted, he had never felt such intensity, not even when he had trained with Psychic races. And more disconcertingly with that whiplash of hate to the empire even he had felt something in his heart curl up, ready to follow the girl, ready to follow this raggedy bunch to death. Some intense primal feeling was rearing up that made Zar afraid.
"I have seen the Oldwyn red with the blood of my people, I have bathed in her water and heard the hearts of those who died, those who were killed and those that were not born. I have slept with bird-of-bodies over my head and I have woken to find another soldier dead without food. I have seen my army wither in front of the bombs of Khragar ", Zar winced visibly but he knew that something worse much worse was happening here. He was feeling the girls hate. He wasn't empathizing, he knew what empathy was and he could overcome it. He was becoming that thin ten year old's hate. And he could feel around him, every single eye was burning with the hate of that girl, a hate that packed thousands of years of evolution of the last charge of the instinct parent to protect its progeny.
"But till there is drop of blood in my veins, till my heart beats even a single beat, till I am alive and stand on the soil of Nidar, till I am the daughter of my parent, till I am the lover of my lover-to-be, till I am the mother of my children. I shall fight. Till we are here and and till a single drop of blood can course through our veins, till our daughter's daughter' daughter calls out from the dust of Nidar, I will fight. I am the mother of Nidar, all ye who hear me tell me", her voice had risen in tone an power and he could see that Loorna was not Loorna anymore she was what she was saying. And helplessly Zar - Class 7 investigator repeated.
"Nidar is our child, and till their is drop of blood in our veins, till there is beating heart among us, till there is one of us standing we shall protect here", Zar felt it, that rising tide of emotion and he could not believe that it was possible but he felt that incredible jump in psychic factor.
It hit him like a wall, and it drowned him and he lost himself and he found himself.
He heard billions of hearts beating, every single beat at unison. He saw the whole planet webbed to together by iridescent blinding light as every single Nidarian seemed to exist as one and as an individual within this matrix. And he suddenly heard a tornado rising, a crescendo of voices rippling with pure love, pure hate, pure resistance and pure courage, a concordant crescendo of emotion rise and dissolve him into oblivion as only the words remained.
NUQAR OMNA
Never My Child. And Zar realised it at that very moment that it had nothing to do with the girl, every person in that raggedy bunch of Nidarians was capable of what he had seen. He had seen the strongest primal instinct bred a by evolutionary nature multiplied a million times running on pure endocrines. He had heard them call the planet their child and he had seen that primal instinct aroused by those words, that primal instinct of species-self-progeny preservation rise and rip through the planet. And he knew now that the Empire could blast the whole of Nidar into pieces of rocks but it could never ever subdues these people. No, not even the mythical creator could suppress these people if the creator willed so.
Zar knew at that instant that the empire was never going to win again these people. Never against Nidar.
Finally I got about writing an SF story. This is not big-spaceship-blast-out-planet SF but the other sort :-)
The five council members looked at each other and then almost in unison looked back at Zar.
Member One said "Zar, we are aware of your liberalist tendencies. But surely you cannot be serious when you suggest that we abandon Nidar ?"
"Councilperson I will swear by my findings and I will swear by my conclusions. It is uneconomical to continue the war any longer. Even after including the socio-metric factors and the appropriate mass behavior dynamics we stand to lose more than we gain if we continue this ..., this ..., this action." Zar could never call it what the council maintained " Aggressive Pacifying", they called it.
All the members stared at Zar.
Member Three said, "You have written report for us ?"
"Yes I do and I believe that it is all you will need to read to be convinced", replied Zar. Ah his masterpiece and he had not even written it.
Member Five replied, "Then we will convene after we have read the report".
By mutual agreement the council broke up as Zar bowed and went away. He knew he was going to win because the empire valued words more than people's lives and he had for them words that would prove without doubt what he was saying. His mind went back to the report and he felt a tingle go through his spine. Undoubtedly they were perhaps the strongest words he had ever read and in his heart he knew that mights of empires would wobble when they were faced by words like these. And the people, Oh the power, the people the citizenry of Nidar, what people they were! He had been there where the words had been read and he had been electrified, he had lost his own identity, he who was a council rep and class 7 investigator, had lost his own identity and been electrified by those words and he had felt something that he never felt possible. He had felt the madness of freedom. He had almost given up his identity then and joined the Nidarians. No wonder so many field operatives had been lost. They had something that the technology of the whole empire could not subdue, erase maybe blast the oblivion out of it yes but subdue, never.
It was balmy night, he could hear the sickening sounds of the suck-detonates. Empire technology at its best, these devices imploded tearing apart organic matrix while material structures like building and natural features remained intact. Also Nidarians were type IV organism with extreme psychological sensitivity and empathy. Body dissection had shown highly developed hormonal secondary hormonal system. The could practically function on their glandular energy supply for days alone. Hence they were emotionally unbalanced people and the more organic waste i.e carnage of Nidarian dead-bodies the sooner the planet would fall - simple Empire logic to make the subjugation efficient. But they had failed, of course Nidar was no match for the empire technology but the war had been on for many Terran months now but Nidar kept on refusing to settle down. It seemed the only way to keep an area under the Empire control was to wipe out every single Nidarian and even they kept on coming back. For the first time in so many Terran years, empire strategy was failing. And the economic machines of the empire had kicked in. The controllers of the empire knew too much about chaos to let this butterfly flap its wings too much. Ordinary military operatives were sent and lost. So Zar, Class 7 investigator, had been sent to Nidar, incognito disguised as a perfect Nidarian. He was to find out weak spots in the Nidarian psychology based on first-hand observation and report back to the Council.
The local Council (it was more of a ragged street gang according to Zar, typical low evolute "Might is the leader" psychology at work) had convened a meeting at night. So far with whatever out-society reconnoitering he could gather, these nightly meeting seemed to figure high up in the reason of the almost indomitable wave of Nidarians that kept fighting back. Finally he had acclimatized himself enough to attend one meeting without raised eyebrows. The smell part had been difficult, Nidarians generated individual smells that worked subliminally for identification and Zar had to master the olfactory apparatus before he could generate specific general signals that put the Nidarians at ease.
The group was raggedy and really almost pitiable. Most of the active age-group were absent or killed in the war (Zar himself was disguised as an Old male). The leader was an old female somewhat past the active age-group but with a strong control-mentality (Zar was accomplished in organism behavioral indicators). More of the local populace was shuffling in. They were all in hard times he could see that. So at least the empires' decision to attack major nutrition centers was paying off. So why weren't they giving up?
The leader female raised her hand as a silence descended on the group. What was going to happen, here, prayers asking for their local deity-of-faith to grant them powers. Maybe that was how they were resisting. Then it would be a simple matter of some mental messaging and some messiah figure and Nidar would be theirs. Faith could get complicated but nothing the empire could not handle. But Zar suspected that the answer was not that simple.
"Loorna will read her message, Nuqar Mena!", said the female leader.
"Nuqar Mena", repeated Zar with the bunch. Nuqar Mena - Never Me in the ancient Nidarian tongue. Zar had seen it plastered across battle-fields.
A small female stood up. She was thin as stick and Zar could almost feel her weakness and an artificial empathy for her. What was this? Some sort of trained exhortation. But he felt it in the chemicals in the air, the atmosphere tensed. She began:
" I am Loorna, I am seven revolutions old. I was born free", a thin little high pitched voice came out her little mouth.
"She was born free", people recited and Zar was surprised to hear himself repeat it.
"I was raised by my mother, I was raised by my father, I was raised by my brothers. My father lies dead on the soil of Nidar. My mother lies dead on the soil of Nidar, My brothers fight for the soil of Nidar. My friends of young who built huts of sand with me on the shores of Menna lies strewn in the battle-fields. I saw my domus emptied of life by the Khragar", the intense hate put in those word was more painful than whips' edge as Zar almost winced. He was disconcerted, he had never felt such intensity, not even when he had trained with Psychic races. And more disconcertingly with that whiplash of hate to the empire even he had felt something in his heart curl up, ready to follow the girl, ready to follow this raggedy bunch to death. Some intense primal feeling was rearing up that made Zar afraid.
"I have seen the Oldwyn red with the blood of my people, I have bathed in her water and heard the hearts of those who died, those who were killed and those that were not born. I have slept with bird-of-bodies over my head and I have woken to find another soldier dead without food. I have seen my army wither in front of the bombs of Khragar ", Zar winced visibly but he knew that something worse much worse was happening here. He was feeling the girls hate. He wasn't empathizing, he knew what empathy was and he could overcome it. He was becoming that thin ten year old's hate. And he could feel around him, every single eye was burning with the hate of that girl, a hate that packed thousands of years of evolution of the last charge of the instinct parent to protect its progeny.
"But till there is drop of blood in my veins, till my heart beats even a single beat, till I am alive and stand on the soil of Nidar, till I am the daughter of my parent, till I am the lover of my lover-to-be, till I am the mother of my children. I shall fight. Till we are here and and till a single drop of blood can course through our veins, till our daughter's daughter' daughter calls out from the dust of Nidar, I will fight. I am the mother of Nidar, all ye who hear me tell me", her voice had risen in tone an power and he could see that Loorna was not Loorna anymore she was what she was saying. And helplessly Zar - Class 7 investigator repeated.
"Nidar is our child, and till their is drop of blood in our veins, till there is beating heart among us, till there is one of us standing we shall protect here", Zar felt it, that rising tide of emotion and he could not believe that it was possible but he felt that incredible jump in psychic factor.
It hit him like a wall, and it drowned him and he lost himself and he found himself.
He heard billions of hearts beating, every single beat at unison. He saw the whole planet webbed to together by iridescent blinding light as every single Nidarian seemed to exist as one and as an individual within this matrix. And he suddenly heard a tornado rising, a crescendo of voices rippling with pure love, pure hate, pure resistance and pure courage, a concordant crescendo of emotion rise and dissolve him into oblivion as only the words remained.
NUQAR OMNA
Never My Child. And Zar realised it at that very moment that it had nothing to do with the girl, every person in that raggedy bunch of Nidarians was capable of what he had seen. He had seen the strongest primal instinct bred a by evolutionary nature multiplied a million times running on pure endocrines. He had heard them call the planet their child and he had seen that primal instinct aroused by those words, that primal instinct of species-self-progeny preservation rise and rip through the planet. And he knew now that the Empire could blast the whole of Nidar into pieces of rocks but it could never ever subdues these people. No, not even the mythical creator could suppress these people if the creator willed so.
Zar knew at that instant that the empire was never going to win again these people. Never against Nidar.
Finally I got about writing an SF story. This is not big-spaceship-blast-out-planet SF but the other sort :-)
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