Duthail arose during the darkest time in our history. We still trapped by the belief of freedom and individual expression above all else. Our people were locked into struggles with all sorts of groups and factions. Brief but deadly battles burned across planet, just as they did on the three planets we had colonized. Crime was rampant and a huge amount of resources were spent trying to keep the peace. Our very survival became an uncertainty.

It was in this environment that Duthail created the Suzerainty. At first it was simply a group living a philosophy of peace using principles that successfully created an unshakeable moral fiber. Using this group, the principles of centering were first explored.

As a direct result, the first true sustainable peace broke out on Isius, but only among those who embraced the concept of centering. While morality swept over the majority of Isius, some groups resisted. One group in particular was violently opposed to embracing the center: the Merefant.

Their refusal to acknowledge the center created a beacon for all the anarcous forces on Isius. Everywhere they went anarcous behavior sprung up like wildfire. But even this was not enough for them. Eventually, they began to attack the people who were trying to live peaceably. Duthail was forced to include military training for the Suzerainty. But the Merefant were expert killers. Even with the best training available, the Suzerainty were losing ground.

There was only one possible solution. Led by Duthail, our people began to band together in what would eventually become known as the Union.

The Merefant responded fiercely. It was thus the devastating Merefant Wars began.

While Duthail continued to develop the centering philosophies, the technology to force centering was researched in earnest. As our skill at remaining centered grew, so did our anger at the blind destruction of the Merefant ways. Finally, after the Merefant inflicted a particularly horrific battle on our people, the entire force of the Union was thrown into one terrible battle. Though their defeat was inevitable the Merefant refused surrender under any terms. Every last one fought to the death.

No Merefant survived beyond 138 AD.

History of the Union

Standard school history file.

2740 Version

Isius, 2755 AD

In a research area adjoining the main Isius library, a rounded ancient man poured over volumes even more ancient than himself. It was even written on paper. The small amount of information in such an unwieldy form made it an unpopular study among the scholars, but Jarlath sensed secrets in these old tomes and he loved secrets. His office was filled with apparently random piles of books and papers generations out of mainstream use. His delight drove him to become the foremost authority in ancient history.

Deep thoughts prevented him from hearing the door chime.

And again.

After a short time a young man came to stand in the entrance and politely made a noise to let Jarlath know he was present.

Jarlath looked up, looking blank until his mind finished traveling the long journey from ancient history to focus on the here and now. "Silyen!" He stood as fast as his old legs could propel him to embrace his young friend, "I haven't seen you for, what is it now, six cycles? What have you been up to? Did that recommendation I gave you help at all?"

The wiry researcher grinned back at his office bound mentor, "You have no idea what that meant to me. I've just come back from Titan 6."

"That star!" His eyebrows rose in surprise. "I must be more important than I thought." Jarlath worked his way around piles of books to sit back into his chair.

The young man smiled. "I was picked out of thousands of researchers to go out into the field be as close as we could and still be safe. It collapsed just as we predicted. Only the luckiest went, Jarlath. You were always lucky for me."

Jarlath felt pride trying to push up and gently put it aside to center himself. "That's wonderful, Silyen."

Silyen looked at the memcorder in his hand. "We recorded something ... ah ... a little odd. I was wondering if you could take a look at it for me."

An aged chuckle escaped him. "You are in the historical archives, not an observatory. I’m no astrophysicist."

"But that's just it! We had a ... ah," Silyen looked slightly uncomfortable. He started again, "Well, kind of a code showed up in a radio carrier wave. When we first detected it I simply thought it was background radiation, but the computer noticed that it repeated itself every twenty seconds. It was complicated, not like a cyclical blip."

Jarlath studied him. "But you didn't investigate...?”

Silyen shrugged. "We couldn't. The calculated source was out of range of the navigation beacons."

Jarlath's bushy eyebrows drew in towards his nose. "There was a message carried in the radio carrier wave, is that what you are saying?"

"Yes." Silyen fidgeted with the memcorder. "It was strangely flat, like someone tried to destroy it, but fortunately our equipment is really quite sensitive. We tried to decode it, but couldn’t. I think it’s in one of your academic codes, Jarlath. If I’m right, you are the only person I know who might be able to crack it."

Jarlath felt a wave of excitement roll through him. Could such good luck happen? How could Merefant information possibly end up in a radio transmission? "Did your analysis determine the origin of the signal?"

"That was a little harder, but I thought it was somewhere between four to six cycles old."

Jarlath sensed Silyen's excitement, "And...?”

"It turns out we were about six light-years away from where Caramm IV was when that colony was destroyed."

"Duthail help us, that was a horrible thing."

"But don't you remember? The Merefant site that everyone was talking about? People were scrambling to get access to it but it was destroyed before anything could be disseminated."

"How do you know that, Stan? That was information was available to top academics only."

Silyen smiled. "You told me."

Jarlath grunted.

"Anyway, I thought this radio signal might have some answers."

Jarlath straightened in his chair as the significance sunk in. "You suspect that this might have come from Caramm IV?”

“I think that when they knew realized they were going to die they did there best to send the information in any way they could think of."

Silyen’s logic was sound. It was only a chance, but Jarlath couldn't control his building excitement. "God and Duthail love us all! This is incredible! This is ..." Jarlath grinned helplessly. There wasn't a good enough word to describe it.

"I thought you would like to be the first to see it."

Jarlath blinked. "I'm the first? Isn't there a science station near there?"

"No, there used to be one near the Caramm system but it was never replaced after the attack. There's little development around the Caramm system, now." Silyen smirked. "One of the more dramatic arb pilots I know has taken to calling the area the "dark zone", just because there are no navigation beacons."

Jarlath barely heard. The nearly unbearable enthusiasm had put a permanent grin on his face. "Thank you so much, Silyen."

"You're welcome, my friend," he said as he left.

Jarlath did not have to "crack" the code. The encryption key would be one used by a close knit team of researchers. It took him only three tries before he hit upon the right key.

“Yes!”

It was the lost information about a Merefant ruin! All of it. Pictures, sounds, a complete documentary of the dig with analysis by Ervin himself. He danced a short jig, laughing the whole time.

He sat down to savour this most unexpected delight. The Merefant was such a dangerous subject that only a very few were authorized to study it. But even these most privileged scholars found the lack of solid information frustrating.

As Jarlath began to read and categorize, he realized he had information beyond even his wildest dreams. This would answer questions that have been heatedly debated for millennia!

The Merefant seemed to have powerful civilizations striving to fulfill their desire to live all their feelings above all else. To rage when one felt rage and to cry when one felt sad. Like children in one way, but some feelings were far beyond children. It must have been fascinating to be one of the Merefant, living so vividly with feelings and passions. To be able to express anything anytime. Anything was possible! Jarlath frowned and shook his head as he re-centered himself. Then he carried on, his computer hummed on the highest level of encryption and security as he carried on organizing, categorising and summing the material.

Like all cultures he studied, he put himself in their shoes to see how the world would look through their eyes. The Merefant had the most alien outlook of all those who had populated space from Isius. It was just so interesting!

As Jarlath worked with the material he began to think about the re-centering process, how it captured the emotional body to anchor Union citizen's thoughts and feelings. The Merefant must have thought this was torture, for they believed that unless the emotions were free a part of their being was trapped in a horrible torture. What if they were right?

He snorted. What rubbish!

Academically, he noted the part of himself that seemed to want to let go emotionally. Then he dismissed it.

His translations of the Merefant information continued.

It was a week later that a centering monitor in his office started flashing its warning. Anarcous thought was close. Emotions were becoming unstable.

Jarlath stared at it a long time. Must be someone near the office. He hadn't been lax in his recentering exercises. Why should he be uncentered? This was ridiculous. What he needed to do was continue to research the Merefant.

Absently, he switched off his local centering monitor.

He was so engrossed in his work that he was not sure how long it was before he noticed Suzerain prowling around the halls outside his study. Probably they were on an exercise. The Suzerainty labyrinth was underneath of the complex where he worked.

Unless they were really tracking down an uncentered person. Silly people! They have all the tools and the local sensors and still some let themselves fall into anarcous thought. These people were so stupid. Causing the government to do what individuals should do. People need to be more responsible. If his work got disrupt by some irresponsible uncentered person they had better hope he never got his hands on them!

A growl interrupted his thoughts. He froze. It took him a several moments to realize it had been his growl.

His whole world tilted.

He had just been thinking of violence and it had felt good. Anarcous thought! Could it be he was the one for whom they were searching. How could it have happened to him?

He would be recentered by the Suzerainty. Professionals. Most people looked forward to re-centering since it eased the internal tensions. It was easier and far more efficient than the recentering exercises, though it cost the state money. But instead of feeling relieved, somehow the thought bothered Jarlath.

Then he thought about the research. When they came, it would disappear forever into the Suzerainty labyrinth. Deep down, he knew the Suzerainty would not approve of him having the Merefant research. Jarlath frowned. Something inside mutinied. "Damn." he muttered. The problem was that being anarcous he no longer cared whether this would be dangerous for others or not. A part of him observed what was happening with a sense of detachment. He wanted to care, but now he felt the information was more important than the Suzerainty’s abstract concern. But he knew he was anarcous, shouldn't he resist these impulses? Intellectually, the answer was easy, but a growing emotional presence denied the obvious. This information was too important. He had to leave a copy somewhere. Somehow. How to do it without the Suzerainty discovering what he had done?

Anyone exposed to this information would immediately report him and turn over the research, unless they were as uncentered as he was. And if they were anarcous, they would soon be re-centered. He snorted. There must be a way!

His entrance chime sounded. Jarlath spun to glare at his end.

A small boy stood in the doorway. "Excuse me, sir, but I was wondering if you could help with this?" he asked holding up a book.

Jarlath frowned. Students shouldn't have real books; they were too precious and many contained uncentering ideas. A second thought: Did the Suzerainty use boys? Jarlath shook himself. Of course not! Then he noticed the title on the book. It had been written in Wertchenze. Only thirty-one people in all the Union could read the language of the vanished Wertchenze race.

Why would the librarian give that to a child?

Jarlath shook his head. Who cared? Sort the boy out and get back to the research. "Let me have the book, boy."

The boy reached up with the book. "Sir? What do you do?"

"I'm an historian, child." He glanced at the boy and saw that he did not understand. "I research history. I try to expand on what is already known and look for evidence of different..." Deep thoughts for one so young. He shook his head at himself before resuming. "I'm one of the people that writes the stories about people and events that have happened before."

His face lit up. "You mean like stories about Duthail?"

Jarlath smiled. "That's right."

The puzzlement on the child's face disappeared and his face shone as thoughts flashed ungrounded in his head. "The librarian said that you might translate some of it for me."

"She did? No matter. All right, then. Give me your memcorder and I'll be right back." He went back into his file room with the book and the memcorder. Sitting at his computer he switched it on and configured it into combined keyboard/audio mode. He efficiently entered the name of the book and then said, "Union translation." As the computer thought for a moment Jarlath's eye fell on his personal memcorder. The research computer said, "Found."

Jarlath paused. A wild thought struck him. Could it possibly work? Jarlath sat struggling with himself. His mind seemed stuck in a cycle; no one will be able to crack it--if no one can crack it, how can anyone find it ever—I have to get this out somehow—the Suzerainty mustn’t find it—no one will be able to crack it ….

The computer patiently reminded him, "On standby." Jarlath lurched into action. He quickly loaded the Union translation of the Wertchenze book and snatched the other memcorder. The connection took only a moment. Another three seconds and the entire Merefant research file had been downloaded. Then he returned to the main computer. "Activated level 9 encryption program."

"Authorization, please..."

"Jarlath, EIMS:0048751:2m1:His:LN."

"Action?"

"Create new encryption key."

The computer compared Jarlath's official identification with his biological signature through sophisticated sensors. "Program accessed."

This was going to make an enormous file. For a moment, he wondered if the computer could even do it, but then he realized the computer didn’t care. It would simply complete its task one step at a time, just as it always did.

The imported the Merefant research file would become the encryption key. In this case, the key was bigger than the file it was going to encode. Just to be safe, Jarlath copied the Wertchenze book twice more to treble its original size. Now it was slightly bigger than the Merefant file.

“Encrypt file.”

Even the academic’s powerful computer struggled with the task. How long before someone guessed that the valuable information was not the encrypted material, but the key itself? Long enough, of that he was sure. The file would appear to be a huge corrupted educational file. Nothing would appear at all suspicious!

Then he put the first Wertchenze chapter on the memcorder in normal fashion. The boy would read it and think that the rest had become corrupted.

The terrible thought struck him. No one would find it!

Jarlath's self-satisfied smile faded. His mind returned to the unsolved problem; if no one could find it, how would anyone read it? Quickly, Jarlath, quickly, he warned himself. But if he left too many clues the Suzerainty would find it and destroy the evidence. No one would learn.

He had to tell the boy something. A clue that the Suzerainty would miss.

He must get moving or else someone might get suspicious. He got up.

But he had to find a way to tell the boy.

He walked back into his archive room. "Here you are, boy." What to tell him? "The Wertchenze were a very mysterious race." There must be a way. "We only know a little because they vanished during the early expansion wars." Think man! "You must remember something." What must he remember?

"Yes, sir?"

Jarlath paused.

"Are you alright, Sir?"

"Yes, yes. I was just thinking."

"Yes?"

"I was thinking ... the lesson of the Wertchenze ... they were very mysterious. Yes, that's right. And people spent all their effort trying to undercover their secrets. But everyone missed the point. The real key to their civilization wasn't what their secrets were. Do you understand, boy? It wasn't their secrets, it was how they were guarding their secrets. That was the key. Remember this, boy. It was how they were guarding their secrets."

The boy looked puzzled.

"It doesn't matter if you understand it now, but you must remember!"

"What, sir? That their secrets weren't secrets?"

"NO!" Jarlath paused when he saw the boy jump. He took a deep breath. "Sorry. You must remember that the key to the Wertchenze was how they were guarding their secrets. This is very important."

"The key to the Wertchenze was the way they were guarding their secrets."

"That's right! Remember!"

A very puzzled boy left with his small school memcorder.

It was the next day when he recognized the horrifying flaw in his plan. If the Suzerainty had the ability to re-program minds wouldn't they also have the ability to read the old one? He felt sick. But it soon turn to anger. They would not defeat him!

A part of his brain was desperately trying to reach him. You are not rational. Don’t do anything drastic.

Jarlath growled at it. He would not lose this final battle.

This is being anarcous! a voice in his head insisted. Do you care nothing about others?

I will not lose!, he responded. I will stop them.

They are not your enemy!

They are!

But there is nothing you can do. They will know everything.

A terrible bleakness fell over Jarlath. He knew one more step would take him irrevocably over a precipice. But he would win!

The voice panicked, No!

Shut up, he told those voiced.

You must listen!

So you think. He smiled. He would kill himself. That would stop the voices and the Suzerainty. No machine can read a dead mind. There was no down side to this.

You can’t! the voices pleaded.

Like a weapon, Jarlath aimed the self re-centering techniques at the voiced to shut them up. They quickly went quiet. Then he began to look around the room for something lethal.

This was going to be hard. He let his mind roll over his vast memories, looking for a way. Oh yes. The memcorder.

The door chimed. Jarlath glared at the entrance. His nostrils flared. He lurched up and locked the door.

He heard urgent voices outside. The Suzerain had arrived at his door.

Throwing himself back into his chair, he started pulling apart the memcorder.

He could hear the Suzerain attacking the door mechanism.

So, it was to be a race!

Jarlath got to the element he was looking for. Taking a pointed tool, he stabbed at his arm, trying to cut himself. The pain was shocking, but also seemed to contain a release. It took a few tries; skin was tougher than it looked.

The Suzerain opened the door just as Jarlath pushed the element into the broken skin.

They rushed over, not sure what they were seeing.

“What’s happening?” the younger one asked.

The older one expertly scanned the scene. Seeing the disassembled memcorder and Jarlath holding his bleeding arm, he leapt on the dying scholar. He scrambled at Jarlath’s tightly held arm, trying to get at the lethal element held inside the arm.

“Get Body Maintenance here right now!”

The younger man rushed out.

The remaining Suzerain looked at Jarlath. “Why?”

Dimming eyes glared back. “Because I felt like it.”

Then he died.

A small team of Suzerain quickly moved in to clean up. Dead bodies stressed the center of many people.

Even though he had witnessed many anarcous acts in his career, Tiak still found the suicide deeply disturbing. It was uncomfortable being in the same room where such violence had taken place. Any violence still reminded him of Caramm IV, and that was a memory best left sleeping.

Another Suzerain neatly entered the room, showing only subtle signs that she was disturbed as well. “There is nothing on the school memcorder that seems unusual, except one massive corruption,” she reported.

“What do you mean by ‘massive’?”

“About half the memory is made up of what looks like a single corrupted file. There were two other corrupted files; a standard school file, and the boy’s list of chores. I ran the computer on all of them. Two files had recoverable fragments of notes, but there was nothing in the big one.”

“Half the entire memory? That would be a huge file. It isn’t something in code is it?”

“I ran it through all our code breakers. It’s totally unreadable.”

There was a pause. “Do you want me confiscate the memcorder?”

Tiak noticed he hadn’t shaved properly as he ran a hand across his cheek. “No. Just make sure the file is deleted. Do you know how to override the lock?”

“Yes.” She lingered. “I remember studying ‘suicide’ but I didn’t think I’d ever see it first hand. Do we have any idea why he went anarcous?”

“No. The only time I’ve known of murder was Caramm IV. Except for that, I’ve never even experienced this level violence. I’ve certainly never known someone become so dangerously anarcous in so short a time.”

Her eyes widened. “Do you know what happened on Caramm IV?”

Tiak mentally shook himself. He had been close to slipping. Caramm IV remained a secret in order to protect the centering the Union as a whole. Well, at least he could tell her part of the truth. “I was on the recovery team tasked to find the mission chips of some of the killed Suzerain.”

“That whole event was terrible. How can people act like that? Using knowledge and power to kill; what is that in aid of? Thank Duthail for our centering,” she said with feeling. She took one more look at the gloomy room. “Should we report it to the Regent?”

“No. A suicide may be extreme, but by itself it is not dangerous to the Union. It directly affects only one. Anyway, it’ll show up in the anarcous report. Someone will say something if it’s important.”