Back and forth he went from story to silence, from banter to secret, from loud joke to silent recollection of spying on his father, from bright description of playmate Rameen’s extravagant birthday party to the never-told memory of young Eron’s innocent sexual groping with Rameen’s baby sister when they were playing hide-and-seek together in a box. On and on. The light from each nonsecret ended at the shadow-boundary of his world of secrecy until the shape of the secrets became so clearly defined that they were no longer secret. A man’s shadow has nowhere to hide in strong sunlight.
Eron laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks. The glow from the robocar’s instruments—the clock, the wing-light indicators, the red numerals of speed and altitude— seemed to travel outward to illuminate the whole of the unseen world beyond the featureless canopy. He had been transported by metronome into a psychological hyperspace where secrets were no longer invisible. With passionate in-sight he began to blabber about the marvelous nature of these weird hyperspatial concealments. The taciturn farman merely listened.
A secret world revealed. In his rebellion against the strictures of Ganderian custom, Eron seemed to have created— in the cloister of his mind, hidden even from himself—a mental utopia where people actually spoke what they felt and saw. In his twelve-year-old soul he was convinced that such a place, made real, would usher in a better Galaxy. It was what he wanted to build with his life. But such utopian ideation had been taboo on Agander, relegated to the shadows of form and culture, where it was not even sanctified by his own approval. Before he could accept his heretical vision, he needed the approval of his elder tutor, who was the only man he had ever met who had listened to his ravings. A sudden passion was now directed at convincing his guru. He brought forth eloquent arguments.
The farman continued to listen.
But Eron didn’t get the approbation he sought. Murek only smiled his wiseman smile. “You’ll have to work that out for yourself, kid. I can only give you cynically bad advice.” “You’re not going to help me? You’re just another old fiiddy with antiquated ideas! I might have known!”
“In the meantime listen to some bad advice. You don’t have to take it.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t!”
“But you’ll listen?”
“I might,” said Eron sullenly.
“You’ve committed the sin of simplicity. It is not the worst sin in the universe. Every design is bom naive. Even the life that originates on a planet appears first in too simple a form, unable to survive except under the most benevolent of hothouse conditions. On Neuhadra life aborted five times before it took root. Ever play chess?”
“Yes, I know,” Eron said with resignation. “At first sight chess feels complex but it’s too simple. Both kings always escape if the players pay attention to their attack and defense. I got bored with chess when I was six. Once you have the algorithm, it always ends in a draw.”
“Exactly. Simple is good—as long as it’s not too simple. Let’s tackle this secrecy thing rationally, adding a little useful complexity to it. What makes secrecy possible?”
“Boxes and locks.” Eron could tell from the stolid response that his tyrannical tutor wouldn’t comment on this facetious answer. But there was going to be no escape from the question, either—Murek had that look—so he set his fam on a cause-and-effect search. What makes secrecy possible? “The ability to communicate?” he guessed.
“Well... yes.” A tutor’s nod, not quite satisfied. “Obviously without communication, secrecy is moot. But why would someone, able to communicate, want to keep a secret? We need a motive.”
“Because your someone is stark crazy and wants to live his life tied up in knots!”
At this bald assertion the cuckolded monster grinned and pounced. “Kid, suppose a handsome daredevil of a man stole away the girlfriend of a bad-tempered giant who was in the habit of slitting the throats of small people who annoyed him. Why might our handsome rake want to keep his liaison a secret?”
“I hope you aren’t toting a knife. Are you?”
“I’m not a bad-tempered giant, either.”
Eron judiciously chose evasion. “But suppose education and love had mellowed all bad-tempered giants? Then no one would need secrets.”
“Suppose I grant you that; imagine we’ve been magically transported to your sublimely mellow universe in which there are no secrets. None. Certainly in such a secrecy-free society no one will be thinking about the consequences of their chatter. Nary a thought wasted on soul searching. Who is to worry that their bit of gossip might hurt someone? Who is to ponder whether newly minted scientific information might boomerang in a destructive way? No one—if all information is considered boon. Who will gain by the dissemination of this information and who will lose? No one is burdened by such nags if dogma has imposed a Rule-for-All-Circumstances upon the galactic citizenry: Information is good and to be shared, no matter the consequence.” “Information is good!” insisted Eron.
“Is that so? For who? I remember a card game you and I played only last spring when we were relaxing from our studies at the Alcazar—a game of cards—we were using the Royal Deck of Fate—and your carefully sober face was molded to hide from me what you knew very well, that your four-hand held the Ax of Mercy, Ax&Stone, Executioner, and Barbarian ” The tutor laughed. “You were a rascal! You kept your secret and wiped out my high cards.”
“You want me to keep secrets?” said Eron, appalled. “I’ve been doing that all my life. I hate it.”
“Neither one nor the other. Isn’t your secret-free Galaxy only the white version of another black Galaxy in which, again, no thought is needed because this time the rules tell us that everything is a secret? If all information is dangerous and must be hoarded—no matter the consequence, paranoia rules. A lazy man’s social order. A machine with no memory could make the necessary decisions in that society flawlessly—whatever the circumstance, stay silent. It’s too simple. Such a black Galaxy would regress to animalhood.”
“So I’m supposed to tell my secrets and, at the same time, keep them,” Eron complained sarcastically while holding his arms fully extended. “Reminds me of a famous old drama about Emperor Stanis-the-Careful. I found it in my copy of A Short History of Our Splendid Emperors. The play opens with the arrival of a mysterious brass-strapped box in which the Emperor finds something of empire-shattering consequence. The stage is silent while he holds up the box to the stars. ‘To speak or not to speak,’ he anguishes. Presently fleets are destroyed, ministers assassinated, his wife drowns herself, his enemies rise and fall—and by the end of his reign he still hasn’t made up his mind.”
“Emperor Stanis-the-Careful lacked judgment.”
Eron adjusted his helmet with impatient fingers. The rings on his fingers were broadcasting his skin resistance. “Rigone told me that young men are much better at making judgments than old men. That makes me smarter than you. I think Rigone was pulling my tail.”