“Ah, Kujdestar. Would you come into my lab for a brief moment?” Minatbar said from the doorway to the lab.
“I’m busy, mystic. I have an event to make and must leave quickly if I’m to arrive in time for it.”
“As I presumed. It will be but a moment, Kujdestar.”
“Fine.” He said, following Minatbar into the lab.
The laboratory had changed significantly since Radko had last seen it. Minatbar’s equipment filled every shelf and surface, all immaculately organized, forming a gleaming landscape of glassware. An audience of jarred specimens looked on with open, dead eyes. Minatbar fiddled with a device carefully lit by a light stone and peered into the eyepiece of it. Seeming satisfied, he stood up straight.
“Take a look.” He implored.
Reluctantly, Radko peered into the eyepiece himself. He saw indeterminate, transparent shapes moving about of their own accord.
“I am not sure what I’m looking for.” He admitted.
“Tell me what you see.”
“I see spectres, mystic.”
“Spectres?” Minatbar said with some noticeable confusion.
“Little things I can see through. They are moving.”
“Ah yes. Good, good. That is what I wanted you to see.”
Radko stood up straight and turned to the mystic.
“It is a neat trick, mystic. But I have little time for novelties.”
Minatbar struck a match and lit a beedi, taking a moment to puff it a bit before speaking.
“Do you recall what I shared with you when I first briefed you on the Morficheskoye?”
“The day they gave me my team?”
“No, earlier.”
“Ah. Yes, it was the day they gave me Adel. I have fond memories of that day.” He said, scratching Adel’s ears. She grinned wider at the memories in her master’s head. Minatbar remained serious.
“You recall the Order's findings in the Morficheskoye milt? That the white material in the discharge is life unto itself?”
“Yes, the swimmers.”
“Remember what I told you about the swimmers?”
“Obviously, that they alone are one half of conception-”
“No. Think of other details.”
“…That they moved of their own free will?”
“Yes. Precisely. Look again, Kujdestar. Tell me, do those entities you see through that lense look as if they are moving of their own free will?”
“I need not look again. I would say that they indeed do.”
Minatbar was silent for a moment.
“Kujdestar, those things in that lense are me.”
Radko looked at him in confusion.
“I have even less time for riddles.” He said, matter-of-factly.
“Kujdestar, there are no riddles. On that slip is a drop of my blood. It is mostly fluids, but within, it never fails, those little entities, those ‘spectres’ as you declared them, they are always there. Always moving. I have examined the blood of many men and women in the same fashion.”
“What does this mean? That our veins are haunted by infinitesimal entities?” Radko asked. The mystic simply puffed smoke for a moment.
“It is my opinion, and the opinion of the Order surgeons, that those entities are alive. They move like creatures. They feed and expel waste. And should you threaten to harm them, be it with instrument or with corrosives, they will retreat. Further, it is my opinion that those creatures do not simply live inside of us. They are us.”
“You mean to tell me that you and I, and all else of the human race, are made up of little gobs of mucous piled atop one another? I must admit, I am incredulous. How do we hold our shape? How does this explain all the different organs and parts that make up a person?”
“What you saw in that lense is but the simplest of the creatures that make us up. There are many others. Most of them quite specialized, and quite a few who have a purpose we cannot yet identify. But they are there, Kujdestar. And they are us. The Morficheskoye were the first creatures we examined in such detail. As the Morficheskoye swarm and survive in coordination to a central mind, constantly communicating with one another via currents of the fluid, so too do their parts. But ours do, likewise.”
Radko couldn’t help himself; he turned and peered into the eyepiece again.
“Further, Kujdestar, these creatures are not mechanical parts. They are not inert. They demonstrate agency, coordination, even planning. They retreat from harm; they seek out food and will work for it. They will even die prematurely if commanded to do so. What’s more, they persecute within their ranks, seeing to it that any underperforming member of their kind self-terminates or is consumed by their defensive members.”
“Wondrous. How many of these creatures make us up?” He asked earnestly, fascinated by the small creatures moving about in the slide.
“Countless. Perhaps millions.”
“Millions? All living their own lives?”
“Yes, Kujdestar. All living their own lives. With their own desires and needs, and a law that rules their land by force of arms and threat of death.”
Radko stood and addressed the mystic again.
“Why have you shown me this?”
The mystic blew a smoke ring.
“Consider this, Kujdestar, in the context of our society. Particularly, in the context of the causes both you and I have fought for in the past.”
“I do not like where this is going…”
“You should not. You are so certain of a serf’s right to be treated like a person rather than as cattle. You are so certain that the corrosive influence of almighty religions can be resisted. You are so certain that people will come to their senses if things are properly explained to them.”
“I have long since given up on the lattermost. It has been a decade at least since I last truly believed such a thing.”
“Perhaps. But I know quite well that you have not given up on the other two. The way these small creatures go about their lives points to a preordained natural order. Be it by design or by spontaneity, life organizes itself in such a way inherently.”
“But what of lone animals in the natural world? And what of tribal societies, small bands and such?”
“The small creatures that make us up are not the only small creatures we have found. Even a simple droplet of river water contains thousands. Some are purely solitary; others live in small clusters of only a few hundred individuals. The natural world is but a duplicate of this smaller, hidden world. And our societies duplicate the hierarchies present in it.”
“And it is supposed that these hierarchies are perhaps inescapable?”
“Yes… The information we have had to sort through in the past five years is staggering, and we are still assembling the narrative behind it all. But what evidence we have points to that supposition. There is still uncertainty, but I’ve never known you to use uncertainty to stifle your doubts.”
Radko paused and thought for a moment.
“Truthfully Minatbar, I’ve considered something of the same thing in many different ways. You and I have even talked on the subject more than once.”
“Yes, but there was no evidence. Now, there is. Perhaps it is time to rethink the governance of nations. To consider a system that does away with the antiquated idea that men may choose their own destiny. From where I stand now, it appears to me quite clearly that most are born to be followers.”
“Careful, mystic, that sounds awfully close to Reclaimer talk.”
He gave an indignant puff on his beedi.
“Hardly. Beneath that lense, samples from a bondsman, serf, lord and leader all look the same, with few anomalies. I would not be so foolish as to suppose that the castes are preordained by something as trivial as the tone of one’s skin or the shape of their nose.”
“Then what determines such castes?”
Minatbar thoughtfully blew another smoke ring.
“I have no strong evidence-”
“Then speculate, damn you.”
“-but I would hazard that the growing mind is a malleable thing. After all, the infants taken from their tribes by the Vladavina and raised in the towns and cities aged to be identical to any other commoners, especially if their peers never figured out their origins.”
“Yes, yes. The ‘Taming of the Savages’. I remain conflicted about that era of our history. A feral culture of toil and misery was stamped out beneath the jackboots of cavalrymen and boarding teachers, but in the Vladavina’s wisdom it was replaced only by another repugnant culture. No doubt the descendants of those adopted savages have voted for the Reclaimers alongside their ethnic butchers.”
“Please Kujdestar, you are distracted. My point with all of this is that perhaps it is time we treat the serfs less like agitators for personal freedom and more as sheep to be herded.”
Radko scoffed at the comment.
“I have always found comparing the common human to ovines to be such foolishness. Sheep are stubborn, violent creatures. They will be led by a shepherd and corralled by barking hounds only as long as they are fed and the weather is placid. When disorder seeps into their ranks and panic sets in, their mobs storm across the pasture and trample or ram anything in their way to smithereens. I have had to inspect and order food pensions for so many farmhands crippled by their own sheep that I dare not doubt the ferocity of such a monster.”
Minatbar nodded absently at Radko’s rant.
“Yes Kujdestar, I have heard that speech from you before. And it is precisely my point. Though people have a will of their own they would still prefer to be led, but only so long as their leaders appear competent. I do not doubt the danger, the will or the capabilities of the serfs or any other commoners, but the simple fact remains that the average human is frightened by the task of managing their own destiny once the true scale of such an endeavor becomes apparent to them. Scowl not at me! Though I have told you this before, now I have the conviction of our discoveries behind it.”
“Fine then, mystic. I concede, but you had help in this argument.” Radko said, bitterly.
“As I have been made aware more than once. Admittedly, Kujdestar, it is indignant of you to be a sore loser for a system you do not even believe in and outright refuse to partake in.”
“I have every right to my anger! After growing up in the shadow of a corrupt electorate and finding my words constantly trumped by insipid debates and purely tactical rhetoric, after telling every soul who would listen what would eventually happen, for my prognostications to come true after all and so soon, damn you, I will be angry though I was right! My judgments shall never again be impeded by mercy or peacemaking. So when you tell me that the human race is a majority of fools easily led, so help me I believe it! Even the most intelligent and affluent of our nation have demonstrated such mental dampness!”
“Indeed, Kujdestar. May your hatreds keep you warm in the harsh winter to come for our nation. But at least you and I are in agreement. Narastaja must find a new way to rule itself, one that is not so clumsy as to elect pampered demagogues and moneyed fragmentarians as its leaders.”
“As I have said more than once in the past. But the fact remains, how?”
“I don’t know, Kujdestar. I simply do not know. But, I can tell you that should any opportunities present themselves to you, it would be wise for you to adhere to pragmatism than to your old altruistic ideologies.”
“Fear not, mystic. Those have been long since left in the ashes of the Night Butcher’s Pass amongst the seared corpses of my compatriots.”
“More casualties to add to such a heavy toll, it would seem. But I am not sure your old ways of thinking were slaughtered quite as wholly as that expedition was. You still cling to some of them, I would say. Like your Vojnik-”
“I knew this was just an excuse for you to ask me about her.”
“Kujdestar, this is serious now. You and I could debate the necessity and discomfort of my methods for an eternity. In the mean time, the only human being to ever be so infested with Morficheskoye tissue has her condition progress day by day unchecked. I haven’t the slightest idea what the outcome of her infestation will be, nor what grisly effects it may have on her flesh, let alone her mind. And yet, even now you propose to leave her unexamined for weeks!”
“She is in a fragile state, Minatbar, and she is not of sound mind.”
