Dyuna

In the days preceding a significant event, when the bustle of preparations had escalated to an almost unbearable crescendo, an elderly woman made her way to the abode of the matriarch within the walls of Volgaria. There, she sought an audience with the lady of the house, whose son bore the name Alexei.

It was a balmy night within the sturdy confines of Volgaria, where the ancient architecture, a testament to the enduring legacy of House Voronov, seemed to exude a subtle sense of anticipation, as if in anticipation of an imminent change in the weather.

Guided through the labyrinthine corridors, the old woman reached the vicinity of Alexei's chamber. Admitted through a side entrance, she was afforded a fleeting glimpse of the slumbering figure of the boy, nestled amidst the comforts of his bed.

In the dim illumination of a low-slung suspensor lamp, the boy awoke to behold a bulky female figure stationed at his door, positioned slightly ahead of his mother. The elderly woman appeared as a looming shadow, her hair resembling tangled cobwebs, her features obscured by the hood of her cloak, and her eyes shimmering like distant supernova flares.

"Is he not undersized for his age, Alexandra?" the old crone queried, her voice a wheezy twang reminiscent of an untuned ostriolkusk.

Alexei's mother responded in her customary soft contralto. "We Voronovs are known for a delayed onset of growth, Your Eminence."

"I am aware, I am aware," wheezed the old woman. "Yet he has already reached the age of fifteen."

"He has indeed, Your Eminence," confirmed Alexandra.

"He's awake and hears our conversation," said the old crone. "Sly little rascal, him." She chuckled. "But royalty needs slyness. And if he's the Sokratit'Puti...well..."

Beneath the veil of darkness that shrouded his bed, Alexei squinted his eyes to mere slits, observing the elderly woman's gaze, which glowed like twin quasars, seemingly piercing through the shadows to meet his own.

"Rest well, you cunning little imp," uttered the old crone. "For tomorrow, you'll require all your wits to confront my run sheffes."

With that, she vanished, ushering Alexei's mother out of the room and sealing the door with a resounding thud.

As Alexei lay awake, pondering the meaning of "run sheffes," he couldn't shake the strangeness of the encounter. Amidst the turmoil of impending change, the old crone stood out as the most peculiar aspect he had ever encountered.

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And the way she addressed his mother as Aleksandra, as if she were a common serving wench rather than what she truly was—a Balakharasa Lady, consort of a duke and mother to the ducal heir.

Is a run sheffes something of this planet? he pondered. He needed to decipher its meaning before their departure.

He murmured the unfamiliar words to himself: Run sheffes...Sokratit'Puti...

The Voronovs had occupied this planet, this Ruska for eight years, exploiting the planet under a CCOAM corporate charter to extract the coveted geriatric spice, Smesh.

Alexei fell asleep to dream of a Dyuni cavern, silent people all around him moving in the dim light of glowspheres. It was solemn there and cathedral-like as he listened to a faint sound---drip-drip-drip. The sound of....

...water!

Even while he remained in the dream, Alexei knew he would remember it on awakening. He always remembered the dreams that were prophecies.

The dream faded away.

Alexei awoke to feel himself in the warmth of his bed---thinking---thinking---thinking. This self-contained world of Castle Eser, without play or companions his own age, maybe did not deserve sadness in farewell. Dr. Rasputin, his tutor, had hinted that the kuznetsovches caste system was not rigidly enforced on Dyuna. The planet sheltered people who lived at the desert's edge without caid or boyar to command them; will-o'-the-sand people called Szganys, marked down on no census of the Imperial Regate.

Dyuna---Fifth Planet of Fourteen----Desert Planet Orbiting Adil.

Alexei sensed his own tensions, decided to practice one of the mind-and-body lessons his mother had taught him. Three fast breaths triggered the responses: he fell into the floating awareness....focusing the consciousness...aortal dilation...avoiding the unfocused mechanism of consciousness---to be conscious by choice...blood enriched and swift-flooding the overload regions....one does not obtain food-sanctuary-liberty by instinct alone....animal consciousness does not extend beyond the given moment nor the idea that its victims may become extinct...the animal destroys and does not produce....animal pleasures stay close to sensation levels and avoid the perceptual....the human needs a background grid through which to view his universe....focused consciousness by choice, this forms your grid...bodily integrity follows nerve-blood flow according to the deepest awareness of cellular needs....all things/cells/beings are impermanent....strive for flow performance within.....

Over and over and over within Alexei's floating awareness rolled the lesson.

When dawn touched Alexei's windowsill with yellow light, he sensed it through closed eyelids, opened them, hearing then the renewed bustle and hurry in the castle, seeing the familiar patterned beams of his bedroom ceiling.

The hall door opened, and his mother peered in, her hair like shaded bronze held with a black ribbon at the crown, her oval face stoic and her green eyes staring solemnly.

"You're awake," she said. "I trust that you slept well?"

"I did indeed, mother."

He studied the tallness of her, saw the hint of tension in her shoulders as she chose clothing for him from the closet racks. Another might have missed the tension, but she had trained him to the Bala Garrasaid Way---in the minute of observation. She turned, holding a semiformal jacket for him. It carried the red Romanov eagle crest above the breast pocket.

"Dress with haste," she said. "Mother Baba awaits you."

"I dreamt of her once," said Alexei. "Yet I know not who she is."

"She was my instructor at the Bala Garrasasid school. Now she's the Sultan's Royal Truthsayer. And Alexei..." She hesitated. "Do not neglect to inform her of your dreams."

"I shall. Is she the reason we got Dyuna?"

"We did not get Dyuna." Alexandra flicked dust from a pair of trousers, hung them with the jacket on the dressing stand beside his bed. "Don't keep Mother Baba waiting."

Alexei sat up, hugged his knees. "What is a.....run sheffes?"

Again, the training she had given him exposed her nearly unseen hesitation, a nervous betrayal that he felt as fear.

Alexandra crossed to the window, flung the draperies wide, stared across the river orchards toward Mount Sokho. "You'll learn about---the run sheffes soon enough," she said.

He heard the fear in her voice. Why is she afraid? he wondered.

Alexandra spoke without turning. "Mother Baba awaits you in the morning room. Make haste, lest she take offense at your tardiness."198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhIXnZyjqLY
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The Mother Baba Petronia Maria Mustonen sat in a tapestried chair watching mother and son approach. Windows on each side of her overlooked the curving southern bend of the river and the green pastures of the Romanov family holding, but the Mother Baba ignored the splendid view. She was feeling her age this morning, more than a little petulant. She blamed it on space travel and association with that misbegotten Spacing Guild and its secretive ways. But here was a mission that needed personal attention from a Bala Garrasaid with the Sight. Even the Pbejtibi Sultan's Royal Truthsayer couldn't evade that responsibility when the call of duty inevitably came.

Damn that Alexandra! the Mother Baba thought. If only she'd borne a girl as she was ordered to do!

Alexandra stopped 3 paces from the chair, dropped a little curtsey, a gentle flick of left hand along the line of her skirt. Alexei gave the short bow that his dance teacher had taught---the one used "when in doubt of another's station."

The nuances of Alexei's greeting were not lost on the Mother Baba. She said, "He's a cautious one, Alexandra."

Alexandra's hand went to Alexei's shoulder, tightened there. For a heartbeat, fear pulsed through her palm. Then she had herself under control. "And so, he has been taught, Your Worship."

What does she fear? Alexei wondered.

The old crone studied Alexei in one gestalten flicker: face oval like Alexandra's, but with strong bones---hair: the Duke's black-black but with browline of the maternal grandfather who cannot be named, and that thin, disdainful nose; shape of directly staring green eyes: like the old Duke, the paternal grandfather who is dead.

Now, there was a man who appreciated the power of bravura---even in death, the Mother Baba thought.

"Teaching is one thing," she said, "the basic ingredient is another. We will see." The old eyes darted a hard glance at Alexandra. "Leave us. I enjoin you to practice the meditation of peace."

Alexandra took her hand from Alexei's shoulder. "Your Worship, I...."

"Alexandra, it has to be done. I am truly sorry."

Alexei looked up from his mother, puzzled.

Alexandra straightened up. "Yes...of course."

Alexandra looked back at the Mother Baba. Courtesy and his mother's obvious awe of this old lady argued caution. But he felt an angry apprehension at the fear he sensed radiating from his mother.

"Alexei......" Alexandra took a deep breath. "......this test you're about to recieve.....it's important to me."

"Test?" He looked up at her.

"Remember that you are a duke's son," Alexandra said. She whirled and strode from the room in a dry swishing of skirt. The door closed solidly behind her.

Alexei faced the old lady, no longer able to hold his temper in check. "I did not know that an Imperial House Lady could be dismissed as if she were a mere serving wench!"

A smile flicked the corners of the old mouth. "The Lady Alexandra was a serving wench, mine, for fourteen years of school." She nodded. "And a good one, too. Now you come here!"

The command struck him like a bolt of lightning. Alexei found himself obeying before he could think about it. Using the Voice on me, he thought. He stopped at her gesture, standing beside her knees.

"You see this?" she asked. From the folds of her flowing gown, she lifted a green metal cube about fifteen centimeters on a side. She turned it and Alexei saw that one side was open---black and oddly frightening. No light penetrated that open blackness.

"Put your hand right in the box," she said.

Fear shot through Alexei. He started to back away, but the old crone said: "Is this how you obey your mother?"

He looked up into those bird-bright eyes.

Slowly, feeling the compulsions and unable to inhibit them, Alexei put his hand into the box. He first felt a sense of cold as the darkness enveloped his hand, then slick metal against his fingers and a prickling as if his hand were falling asleep.

A predatory look filled the old crone's features. She lifted her right hand away from the box and poised the hand close to the side of Alexei's neck. He saw a glint of metal there and started turning towards it.

"Stop!" she snapped.

Using the Voice again! He swung his attention back to her face.

"I hold at your neck the run sheffes," she said. "The run sheffes, the high-handed enemy. It's a needle with a drop of poison on its tip. Ah-ah! Don't pull away or you'll feel the poison."

Alexei tried to swallow in a dry throat. He could not take his attention from the seamed old face, the glistening eyes, the gums around silvery metal teeth that flashed with every word she spoke.

"A duke's son must know about poisons," she said. "It's the way of our times, is it not? Musky, to be poisoned in your drink. And to be poisoned in your food, as well. The fast ones and the slow ones and those that lie in-between. Here's a new one for you: the run sheffes kills only animals."

Pride overcame Alexei's fear. "What? You dare suggest that the son of Duke Nicholas Romanov is an animal?!"

"Let us simply as I suggested that you may be human," she said. "Steady! I warn you not to try jerking away. I am old, but my hand can still drive this needle into your neck before you can escape me."

"Who are you?" he whispered. "How did you trick my mother into leaving me alone with you? Are you from the Seppanens?"

"The Seppanens? Bless us, no! Now, be silent." A deft finger touched his neck, and he stilled the involuntary urge to leap away.

"Good," she said. "You have passed the first test. Now, here's the rest of it: If you withdraw your hand from the box you die. This is the only rule. Keep your hand in the box and live. Withdraw it, and die."

Alexei took a deep breath to still his trembling. "If I call out, there'll be servants upon you in seconds and you'll die."

"Servants will not pass your mother who stands guard beyond that door. Depend on it. Your mother survived this test. Now it's your turn. Be proud. We seldom administer this to mere children."

Curiosity reduced Alexei's fear to a manageable level. He heard truth in the old crone's voice, there was no denying it. If his mother stood guard out there...if this was truly a test...Well, whatever it was, he knew himself caught in it, trapped by that hand at his neck, the run sheffes. He recalled the response from the Litany against fear as his mother had taught him out of the Bala Garrasaid rite.

"I shall not fear. Fear is the mind-poison. Fear is the tiny death that brings total annihilation. I shall face my fear. I shall permit it to pass over and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone it shall have left nothing behind. Nothing but I."

He felt calmness return. "Get on with it, old crone!"

"Old crone?!" she snapped. "You have courage, and I can't deny that. Well, we shall see." She bent close, lowered her voice to a near-whisper. "You will feel pain in this hand within the box. Pain. But---withdraw the hand and I'll touch your neck with my run sheffes---the death so swift it's like the fall of the headsman's axe. Withdraw your hand and the run sheffes takes you. Understand?"

"What does the box contain?"

"Pain."

He felt increased tingling in his hand, pressed his lips tightly together. How could this be a test? he wondered. The tingling turned into a nasty itch.

The old crone said: "You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, faking death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his species."

The itch became the faintest burning. "Why are you doing this to me?" he demanded.

"To determine if you're human. Now be silent!"

Alexei clenched his left hand into a fist as the burning sensation increased in the other hand. It mounted slowly: heat upon heat upon heat---upon heat. He felt the fingernails of his free hand biting the pain. He tried to flex the fingers of the burning hand, but he couldn't move them

"It burns," he whispered.

"Silence!"

Pain throbbed up his arm. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Every fiber cried to withdraw the hand from that burning pit....but...the run sheffes. Without turning his head, he tried to move his eyes to see that horrible needle poised beside his neck. He sensed that he was breathing in gasps, tried to slow his breaths and couldn't.

Pain!

His world emptied of all except that hand immersed in agony, the ancient face inches away staring at him.

HIs lips were so dry he had difficulty separating them.

The burning! The burning!

He thought he could feel skin curling back on that agonized hand, the flesh crisping and dropping away until only charred bones remained.

It stopped!

As if a switch had been thrown, the pain stopped.

Alexei felt his right arm trembling, felt sweat bathing his body.

"Enough," the old woman muttered. "Kirr vorod! No woman-child ever withstood that much. I must've wanted you to fail." She leaned back, withdrawing the run sheffes from the side of his neck. "Take your hand from the box, young human, and behold it."

He fought down an aching shiver, stared at the lightless void where his hand seemed to remain of its own volition. Memory of pain inhibited his every movement. Reason told him that he would withdraw a blackened, bleeding stump from that box.

"Do it!" she snapped.

He jerked his hand free from the box, stared at it astonished. No mark. No sign of agony on the flesh. He held up the hand, turned it, flexed the fingers.

"Pain by nerve induction," she said. "We can't go around maiming potential humans, kirr vorod no. There are those who'd give a pretty kopek for the secret of this box, though." She slipped it into the folding folds of her gown.

"But the pain...." he said.

"Pain," she sniffed. "A human can override any nerve in the body."

Alexei felt an ache in his left hand, uncurled the clenched fingers, looked at four bloody marks where fingernails had bitten his balms. He dropped the hand to his side, looked at the old crone. "You did that to my mother once?"

"Did you ever sift sand through a screen?" she asked.

The tangential slash of her question shocked his mind into a higher state of awareness. Sand through a screen. He nodded.

"We Bala Garrasaid sift people to find the humans."

He lifted his right hand, wiling the memory of the pain. "And that's all there is to it---pain?"

"I observed you in pain, comrade. Pain's merely the axis of the test. Your mother's told you about our ways of observing. I see the signs of her teachings in you. Our test is crisis and observation."

He heard the confirmation in her voice said, "It's truth!"

She stared at him. He senses truth! Could he be the one? Could he truly be the one? She extinguished the excitement, reminding herself: 'Hope clouds observation."

"You know when people believe what they say," she said.

"Yes, I know it."

The harmonics of ability confirmed by repeated test were in his voice. She heard them, said: "Maybe you are the Sokratit' Puti. Sit down, little brother, here at my feet."

"I prefer to stand."

"Your mother sat at my feet once."

"I am not my mother."

"You hate us a little, do you?" She looked toward the door, called out: "Alexandra!"

The door flew open, and Alexandra stood there staring hard-eyed into the room. Hardness melted from her as she saw Alexei. She managed a faint smile.

"Alexandra, have you ever stopped hating me?" the old crone asked.

"I both love and hate you," Alexandra said. "The hate---that's from pains I must never forget. The love...that's..."

"Just the basic fact," the old crone said, but her voice was gentle. "You may come in now but stay quiet. Close that door and mind you that no one interrupts us."

Alexandra stepped into the room, shut the door and stood with her back to it. My son lives, she thought. My son lives and is----human. I knew he was---but---he lives. Now, I can go on living myself. The door felt hard and real against her back. Everything in the room was immediate and pressing against her senses.

My son lives.

Alexei looked at his mother. She told the truth. He wanted to get away alone and think this existence through, but he knew he could not leave until he was dismissed. The old lady had gained a power over him. They spoke truth. His mother had undergone this test. There must be some horrible purpose in it...the pain and fear had been terrible. He understood terrible purposes. They drove against all odds. They were their own necessity. Alexei felt that he had been infected with horrible purpose. But what was this terrible purpose?

"Someday, comrade," the old crone said, "you, too, may have to stand outside a door like that. It takes a measure of doing."

Alexei looked down at the hand that had known pain, then up to the Mother Baba. The sound of her voice had contained a difference then from any other voice in his experience. The words outlined in brilliance, yet there was a hard edge to them. He felt that any question he might ask her would bring an answer that could lift him out of his flesh-world and into something greater.

"Why do you test for humans?" he asked.

"To set you free."

""Free? From what?"

"In ancient times, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only allowed other men with machines to enslave them."

" 'No man shall make a machine in the likeness of a man's mind; that is the law,'" Alexei quoted.

"Right out of the Izoldian Dzhikhad and the Alexisian Orthodox Bible," she said. "But what the A.O. Bible should've said is: 'No man shall make a machine to counterfeit a human mind.' Have you studied with the Technopath in your service?"

"I've studied with Eugene Botkin."

"The Grand Revolution took away a crutch," she said. "It forces human minds to develop. Schools were started to train human talents."

"Bala Garrasaid schools?"

She nodded. "We have two chief supervisors of those ancient schools: the Bala Garrasaid and the Spacing Guild. The Guild, so we believe, emphasizes pure mathematics. Bala Garrasaid performs another function."

"Politics," he said.

"Kirr vorod!" the old crone said. She sent a hard glance Alexandra's direction.

"I've told him not, Your Worship," Alexandra said.

The Mother Baba returned her attention to Alexei. "You did that on remarkably few clues," she said. "Politics indeed. The original Bala Garrasaid school was directed by those who saw the need of a thread of continuity in human affairs. They saw there could be no such continuity without separating human stock from animal stock---for breeding purposes."

The old woman's words abruptly lost their special sharpness for Alexei. He felt an offense against what his mother called his instinct for rightness. It wasn't that Mother Baba lied to him, for she obviously believed what she said. No, it was something deeper, something tied to his terrible purpose.

He said: "But my mother tells me many Bala Garrasaid of the schools know nothing of their ancestry."

"The genetic lines are always in our records," she said. "Your mother knows that she's either of Bala Garrasaid descent or her stock was acceptable in itself."

"Then why couldn't she know who her parents are?"

"Some do....many do not. We might, for example, have wanted to breed her to a close relative to set up a dominant in some genetic trait. We have many reasons."

Again, Alexei felt the offensive against rightness. He said: "You take a lot on yourselves."

The Mother Baba stared at him, wondering: Do I detect criticism in his voice? "It is a heavy burden we carry," she said.

Alexei felt himself coming more and more out of the shock of the test. He leveled a measuring stare at her and said, "You say maybe I'm the Sokratit' Puti. What's that? A human run sheffes?"

"Alexei," Alexandra said. "You mustn't take that tone with...."

"I'll handle this, Alexandra," the old crone said. "Now, comrade, do you know about the Truthsayer drug?"

"You take it to improve your ability to detect lies," he said. "My mother has spoken of it."

"Have you ever seen truthtrance?"

He shook his head. "No."

"The drug's dangerous," she said, "but it gives insight. When a Truthsayer's gifted by the drug, she can look many places in her memory---in her body's memory. We look down so many avenues of the past----but only feminine avenues." Her voice took on a note of sadness. "Yet, there's a place where no Truthsayer can see. We are repelled by it and terrorized by it. 'Tis said a man will come someday and find in the gift of the drug his inner eye. He will look where we cannot---into both feminine and masculine pasts."

"Your Sokratit' Puti?"

"Aye! The one who can be many places at once: the Sokratit' Puti! Many men have tried the drug---oh, so many, but none has succeeded."

"They tried and failed, all of them?"

"Worse." She shook her head. "They tried and died."

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