The Bridge

Book IV: To Qwell the Tide

by euhal allen

Table of Contents
Chapter 5, part 2 appears
in this issue.

Chapter 5: The Great Tragedy

part 3 of 3

* * *

The alliance celebrated the victory of the Galactic Council. The Qwell’Na, joining in, refused to accept the position of Grand Minister for any of their people but argued that their turn would come later. For the present it would be best if the current Grand Minister kept the office and insured the continuity of the government for the systems that had joined them.

They did, though, accept a place in the bureaucracy with the intention of learning well the systems and rules for later use. And they introduced the thought that the mind should rule the hearts of the people; but these people listened only slightly and the Qwell’Na saw that it would be a great deal of time before they could begin teaching anything from the Manuals to them. That being the case, they concealed the Manuals and their meaning to themselves and concentrated on making the Galactic Council a stable and fair governing power.

Only a few years passed before the First Head of the Family Heads sought to answer a question he had. The Qwell’Di were englobed and could not get out. It would, however, be good if his people could look in on their lost brothers occasionally.

The wise ones of the Qwell’Na tested the Doors against the englobing shield and found it impervious. Conferences were held and adaptations were tried until, finally, a solution was found that not only would give the Door the ability to penetrate the field but increase the range of the Doors tenfold. It also made possible a miniaturization of the Door generators. (This process continued until they were small enough to become personal and be carried on a neck chain.)

With the technical problems solved, the Qwell’Na built a ship that would be indistinguishable from an asteroid. Using the old charts of the system that had once been the home of their own planet, the insertion point was carefully calculated, the Door set and the ship sent through.

At first, using only passive sensors the ship searched for that activity of the inhabitants of the system. Somehow, there did not seem to be any. Going to low level active sensors, the ship searched again. Still no activity in the system or on Di.

Next, again using a low power, the ship began to move towards the planet, warily watching for signs of danger. There were none. Finally the ship orbited the planet itself and that is when the shock came. The planet was steeped in a deadly radioactive soup and there was no life on it. Worse yet, the cameras showed the skeletal remains of the entire population spread out to be seen on the roads and fields of the planet.

Too sick to control the ship, the commander pushed the emergency retrieval button and the ship was soon back at Qwell Prime where the people were wondering what could have happened to debilitate the crew of a ship that seemed to have no damage whatsoever.

The emergency personnel entered the ship and found the crew incapacitated and incoherent. Soon, the recordings of the tragedy on Di were shown to leaders who needed to know what had happened so as to find a deterrent for whatever weapon the Qwell’Di had used on the crew of the ship. They could not watch it all. It was turned off and the people of Qwell were then told, a small amount at a time, the truth of what had happened. The shame was immense. Their wayward brothers on Di had given them the message in the clearest possible manner. They had been betrayed and murdered by their Qwell’Na brothers, and their radioactive world would be a poisoned witness to that fact for all time.

It had been the custom that when a woman became a widow she would divide her name to show that she now stood alone. From the Day of Sorrow forward, the women of the Qwell’Na, the life bearers, in recognition of the sorrow that must never be forgotten, in recognition of the division of the Qwell that, now, could never be healed, permanently divided their names into two parts.

* * *

Sa’Nel, knowing the pain in her husband’s heart, sought to comfort him, to ease the guilt he felt in having been the one who had made the decision. She found him in his study searching, as he always did when he was in pain, for an answer in the Manuals.

Jerdal looked up at his wife and, knowing that she was there to comfort him, said, “The Manuals advise us that Happiness and sorrow spring from choices: Choose wisely. I had thought that I chose wisely. If I did, I did not choose a path of happiness. Yet, I see not that I could have chosen another path. In measuring the lives of our wayward brothers against the deaths that would have come had we not acted, I see that we have done right.

“My heart tells me that what my mind sees is a lie. My heart, I know, must be wrong. We have acted, as we always have, in favor of life. Life has always been one of our Truths. Still, we are diminished by what we have done. The Manuals tell us that Shame is sometimes the only teacher. Until our period of sorrow has been completed we must never again be leaders, as we were in the war against our brothers. In our sorrow we must always be the servers of others.”

“But,” Sa’Nel replied, “how shall we face such a future? We have much to give the others we come into community with. How shall we live down our shame? Can we tell them that the Skeltz we killed were our brothers? Could they trust us if they knew that truth?”

“Our shame will be ours alone. We have this mountain before us and we must climb it ourselves. We can not ask others to climb it with us. I have spoken with the Family Heads and it has been decided. We will send our people into the offices of the government and will work from below to grow this new society.

“Meanwhile we will seek a people who, like us, can work for the good of all and can become brothers to us, replacing the unhappy brothers we have lost. When that time comes and we have given them the fruits of our labors, when they have chosen to become our brothers, our shame will be gone and sorrow lifted.

“Until then our Minister to the Council will forever refuse higher office. Our fleet, stripped of the Door generators, has been given to the Council. We want no more of war. We will work to grow the seeds of peace.”

* * *

And so it was that no Minister of the Qwell ever served as Grand Minister but only as an advisor that was ever neutral in the squabbles within the Council. This neutrality, held to in the strictest sense, made him a valuable judge and negotiator. In time, it was taken for granted that the Qwell’Na, like their Minister, had no ambitions for power and were the best of those qualified to fill positions in the Council government. In those positions the Qwell’Na were able to start the traditions that became the paths these agencies followed thereafter.

Still, there was the problem of the races in the area governed by the Galactic Council. All were contacted again and again. All were invited into the fold with the others who now made up a unified society.

Some saw the benefits and listened to the advantages and became full members of the Galactic Council. Others, for various reasons, did not. Some became violent in their opposition to the Galactic Council and its rule over space that they claimed for themselves. In their disruptive ways lives were lost and the Ministers of the Council began to talk of war against them.

It was then that the Minister from Qwell suggested that to take life unnecessarily would stain their society with needless blood. Would it not be better to just englobe them and let them live as they liked? And it was done. The Galactic Council was free of the guilt of blood and the recalcitrant races were allowed to live.

Some races seemed to have a death wish, for planets were found where they had warred themselves to extinction. Others were found that were seen to be on the road to such a future. It was then that the Minister from Qwell sought to find an answer within the Council’s requirements in dealing with such young races, an answer that would save them through such a difficult period. It was then that Bridge technology began to be applied, and with success.

Time flowed on and the Galactic Council grew and prospered. New races joined or were, because of their antagonism to the Council, englobed. Young races were given Bridges that educated them and helped them to find paths to life and away from extinction. And the Qwell’Na had a hand in it all.

* * *

As time flows, things change; it is a law of the universe. Things that stay always the same never had life, or they die. Thus it may have been on the englobed worlds. Unknown to the races of those worlds as well as to the Galactic Council, the Qwell’Na had inserted watchers, satellites that looked like harmless rocks but sent their secrets to Qwell Prime in a regular stream. Isolated as they were, those races were forced to grow in different ways than they would have had they been free to roam the galaxy. Changes in the lifestyle and attitudes of each race was noted.

Scholars of the Qwell academies were recruited to be teams dealing with the information coming from each englobed race. Soon enough they became experts in the language, customs and laws of each of their subjects. When they decided that the time was right, Doors were opened and certain personages of a race were visited by these ones who understood their ways. In these cases the Manuals were used from the start to educate and grow peoples that could learn to govern themselves in a manner that would stand them in good stead in cooperating with others in the future.

It was in this manner that the Qwell’Na became the initiators of the civilization that would one day become the Tunnel Worlds. But here again, the Qwell’Na would not be the leaders, only the teachers. As the Tunnel Worlds grew, all the races but the Qwell’Na took turns in supplying the Ambassador Prime. The Qwell’Na contented themselves with supplying the Secretary to the Diet, and filling various bureaucratic offices that oiled the machinery of government.

Though the Tunnel Worlds knew of the Galactic Council, it was their general consensus that it would be better if they kept themselves secret from that government until such a time as they could make themselves known in a manner that would not threaten the Council and would allow them to live in peace with each other.

* * *

Things were in this state when a young official of the Council, an et Sharma named Jonkil, reported that he was sure that the brother race had been found. Having been et Sharma for some time, he had studied the progress of those people in relation with the especially enhanced Bridge that had been inserted there. He was to note its effect upon the people under his care. In this race he saw both the characteristics of the Qwell’Na and the Qwell’Di. Yet they were such that Jonkil felt that they would respond to the training of the Mind and could some day join the Qwell’Na in a new society that could work and live together as brothers.

Tests were done and, while the outcome was at times somewhat ambiguous, it was agreed that this people more than any other filled the shoes of the long-sought brother race. They were fervent but could learn to distrust the heart. They were bright but knew that the Mind could not alone give life its joy. They could and did make war, but the majority of them did not find glory in war and the spilling of blood.

The Family Heads of Qwell met with Jonkil and assigned him to remain with these people until they proved conclusively that they really were the brother people he asserted they were. And he did so, spending his entire career as an et Sharma with them. Never, as he watched them and worked with them, did his faith in them falter. Even until his death he spoke of his sureness of his conclusions. These people of Earth, the Blue Planet, were the brother race. These people would erase the shame of the past and lift the burden of the Qwell’Na.

In his sureness of his conclusions he did the unthinkable by choosing as his Jo Dan Bazj the gift to him from a person of this people.

In doing so, as the custom requires, you, Ka’Tia Shapirov, were from that day forward looked upon as the daughter of Jonkil da Laich. No one, not even the First Head of the Family Heads can change a death wish so plainly shown.

In doing this, it was also obvious that, you, the Cyber person, Cyrnon, who guarded, protected, and nurtured Ka’Tia so long within your own self, so to speak, made yourself a part of Ka’Tia Shapirov, as she had been, until she received her own ship, a part of you and your memory. The two of you cannot really be separated. In this manner you acted as an older brother would. Cyrnon, you, too, must be recognized as another son of Jonkil. It is the custom and the law.

It is done.

* * *

The wall grew dark, and the lights began to shine more brightly, and Ka’Tia, tears in her eyes turned to Cyrnon and said, “Somehow I always knew you were my brother.”

And Cyrnon replied, “And somehow I always knew that a heart would be a painful thing to have. Yet, painful as it is, I am somehow glad to have acquired it, for it lets me rejoice in having a sister.”

“But Cyrnon,” said a voice from the doorway, “you, son of Jonkil and brother to my father, you now have a niece, too. And uncles, as you will soon know, always favor their nieces with gifts in our world.”

Standing in the open doorway, Jo’Eya beckoned to them and they were led out and back to the Family Heads. “Now,” said the First Head of the Family, “you will be known as Ka’Tia Shapirov da Laich, and as my sister. You will serve as one of us.” Ka’Tia bowed, as customary, in submission to the command.

Turning to her new brother he said, “Now you will be known as Cyrnon da Laich, and as my brother. You will serve as one of us.” Cyrnon bowed, as customary, in submission to the command.

Then, the solemn ceremony over, the welcoming party for the new Family Heads began.

* * *

Later, Ka’Tia and Cyrnon, hiding in their memory banks from the overwhelming and unused-to pressures of being Family, began the conversation that would start them on a new path.

“The shame, Ka’Tia, is not a reality, it is a reaction to customs that, while somewhat stabilizing, have little or no bearing on the good that was done by their actions.”

“Our actions, Cyr — I can call you Cyr in private, can’t I? — we have to view them as our actions just as our Family does. We cannot look for a solution to this problem outside our Family, since the problem does not exist outsides the Families of the Qwell’Na.

“It would seem, though, that a solution has been put forward by Jonkil. We must, somehow find a way to bring our other people into a closer relationship with the Qwell’Na. Any suggestions?”

“To do so, Ka’Tia — and I don’t really care what you call me — we would have to have a central core of standards that both peoples adhere to. The two central cores of the Qwell’Na, at least as far as I can see, are the closeness of identity with the Family and the Qwom-Sor Manuals, their philosophy of life.

“I doubt that the level of closeness of the Family would attract many of humankind: just look at all the jokes about mothers-in-law and uncles and cousins in human literature. That leaves only the influence of the Manuals.

“It was council from the Manuals, in the long run, that allowed them to do as they did to the errant part of their family. And it was the reasoning from the Manuals that, after the initial reaction to the suicide of those same errant ones, gave them a way to carry on without going insane.

“If the Manuals could be taught to our other people, with some success, perhaps that would lessen, if not alleviate the power of the shame these people fear.”

“Perhaps, Cyr, that is possible. And you know where I am going to start? I am going to start with the Grand Minister. If we can get the Council to begin to use the Manuals as does the Diet, then it would make sense to our people to follow suit.”

To be continued...

Consult the Qwom-Sor Manuals of Duelism

Proceed to the Table of Contents...