And yet, in a different way, he had never felt better.
Chapter 23
Cyre was governed by a ruling council made up of seven members, each representing a different geographical region of the nation. Cozzen was in the largest region, an inland area dominated by that city. There were also two coastal areas, a mountain region, and three smaller inland areas, all making up a nation that was more or less rectangular, bounded on the north and west by seas, on the south by an enemy, and on the east by two separate but allied smaller states. The council members purported to represent the entire population of each region, so that the whole council would support the interests of the nation.
It didn’t work that way, Kyle had learned.
Instead, the council members really represented a small minority of the wealthiest and most powerful citizens in each region. New council members were chosen by existing council members, for terms, of nine Hazimotian years, so there was little chance of anyone who genuinely represented the population finding a seat at the council. Each council member also served as the chief executive officer of his or her region, with another, similarly chosen council at that level under his or her rule.
The main function of the council seemed to be—at least as Michelle and her friends described it—the raising of revenue through taxes, various fees, and fines for criminal behavior. That revenue, however, rarely came back to the citizens in the form of services, but instead seemed to be spent on a never-ending litany of important government contracts—awarded to council members and their allies, of course—that rarely had any real impact on the nation. At the local level, at least, some of the money eventually filtered down, as Kyle had learned. He’d been employed since arriving on Hazimot as a laborer for a perpetual series of municipal repairs. But the money budgeted toward those repairs seemed to be many times what went out in salaries and materials, so it was obvious that the local councilors were padding their pocketbooks the whole time.
The public, squeezed from the top and with no relief in sight, began to object, and so the fires of discontent spread. But the council, isolated from its populace, remained ignorant of how fast and wide their actions fanned those flames. And the population as a whole, though embittered and impoverished by the council’s decisions, didn’t know the full extent of their own unhappiness. Public displays of dissent were banned, the press strictly controlled. There are enemies at our borders, the council said. We’ll take care of you, but you have to be silent and let us do our jobs.
What the revolution needed was a public action, a Boston Tea Party, a storming of the Bastille, a barrage of Station Salem One. Something to show the nation that there was an opposition, that it was organized and strong and determined.
That’s where Kyle came in.
He sat with Michelle and her friends, with Cetra and Roog and Melinka, with Alan and Jackdaw and Baukels Jinython, and with the others who formed the extended planning leadership of Cozzen’s revolutionary cadre. From other cities, including the Cyrian capital of Coscotus on the northern shore, others came. They met, they ate and drank, they talked incessantly. Proposals were put forth, debated, and usually discarded. Others were massaged and kept for further consideration. With Michelle vouching for him, Kyle was accepted into the highest levels of the group. He appreciated the intent of their effort but he was not, by nature, a political activist, and he served as a kind of devil’s advocate for them, poking holes in their ideas to see where the air leaked out.
Finally, the time came to put talk aside and take direct action. Their first attack was meant to be primarily one of public relations, not military. Too many of Cyre’s vast underclass had already died in combat, drafted and sent to battle the unending supply of enemies in other lands. The goal was to oust the council with the least amount of military action, the fewest deaths. But that could happen only if an overwhelming number of the nation’s populace rose up at once.
Mahaross Ka Elstreth was the council member for Cozzen, and on this day he was in the city, officiating over the induction of Cozzen’s newest councilor, his third son, Mahaross Ka Ennis. A parade was planned, and spontaneous displays of patriotic pride were not only encouraged, but had in fact been orchestrated in advance by commercial allies of the councilors. A great many citizens would be watching, and the day’s events would be broadcast live throughout Cozzen and across the land. Two of Elstreth’s fellow council members would also be on hand to greet his son into the ranks of privilege.
The parade would not, if Michelle’s friends had their way, go precisely as expected.
On the day of the action, Michelle dressed quickly, anxious to get into position. But when Kyle tried to follow her out the door she pushed him back into a chair, palms flat against his chest, head wagging. “No,” she said. “You stay here. This isn’t your fight and you can’t get involved.”
He had to laugh. “Seems like I’m already pretty involved.”
“Among those of us on the committee,” she pointed out. “But not on the streets. The rest of them, the people who will be doing the dirty work, don’t know you—they don’t know anyone by name, so if any of them are arrested they can’t implicate anyone on the committee. We’ve all used noms de guerre.”
“That’s a good idea,” Kyle said. He knew that she had met with various planning committees while he worked—that while he had helped with the broad strokes planning, he hadn’t been around for much of the detail work. “But still, if you’re going to be out there I want to be next to you.”
Michelle shook her head again. “Absolutely not. Probably nothing will happen to me, and I’ll see you when it’s over and make passionate love with you. If, on the other hand, something does happen, the movement will need your skills to carry on.”
“My skills only go so far without someone like you to put my plans into action,” Kyle protested.
“Exactly my point,” Michelle said. “Someone needs to put this into action, and that’s me. If you object to me going out and acting, then we’ve got a problem.”
Kyle could see that arguing with her was going to be fruitless. In fact, he realized, in all the planning for today’s activities he had never been assigned a specific role. He’d thought that he would simply be accompanying Michelle, but now he realized it was because she knew he would object if she let him know ahead of time that he was being left behind. “All right,” he said, giving in for now. Another thing he knew was that when Michelle had made up her mind there was no budging her. “But you be careful.”
“Don’t worry,” Michelle promised him. “I love you too much to not come straight back here when it’s over.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Kyle said. “And watching.”
“You do that.” Michelle kissed him several times, and then dashed out the door, her face flushed with the excitement of the day. Kyle felt a surge of disappointment that he wasn’t going with her, combined with worry that he wouldn’t be around to watch her back. But the plan was for a nonviolent action today, more street theater than revolution, so there shouldn’t be much danger.
In a way, this was what Kyle was used to. In his Starfleet role, he was the adviser, the civilian who stayed back while others executed his plans. He had, he was fully aware, been responsible for the deaths of thousands, over the span of his career—Starfleet personnel as well as aliens he would never meet or even see in person. It wasn’t something he thought about very often, because it was a difficult burden to bear. Because he was good at compartmentalizing, that was an aspect of his life that he kept tucked away and didn’t take out to examine very often. When he did, he just accepted that it ran in his family.
His father had been a military man, as had his grandfather. His grandfather, he remembered with displeasure, had also been a tyrant at home, a martinet, running his household as he would have a starship if he’d ever held a command position. But probably because of his violent temper he never was put in charge of troops, so he had taken his aggressions out on his family instead. As the oldest son, Kyle’s father was first in line when his purple rages came upon him.