Chapter the Seventh of Part the First
In which the narrative recounts acts from the life of Tel Arman in the Empire.
Strident horns blared throughout the Imperial Cadet Dormitory, splitting the cadets’ ear drums and shattering their sleep. Like his fellow cadets, Tel Arman followed the emergency dress drill of pulling on his dark red and black brass-buttoned uniform and placing his dress laser shooter over his left shoulder within half a bell. Within another half bell, Tel Arman was standing at attention outside the dormitory in his place in line. As always, the huge portrait of the Emperor looked down on the cadets from the wall they were facing. The imposing face left no doubt as to who rightfully ran the world.
“Emergency assembly satisfactory,” said Don Elsen, the commanding officer for this group of cadets. “Final Onslaught against the white rebels is about to commence. One cheer required—Cheer!”
The cadets yelled out a staccato cheer. They wished they were allowed more, but anticipated that there would be much more cheering and celebration later in the morning and into the evening.
“Left face!” barked the commander. “Forward march to yellow jet train.”
Marching in step to a drum beaten by a girl at the front of the line, the cadets marched down the broad corridor to the yellow jet train stop. The yellow jet train was already in place, waiting for the cadets.
“Split and line up in front of assigned cars!” snapped Don Elsen.
Tel Arman followed the girl in front of him to the eighth car of the yellow jet train and stood at attention in front of the open door. The train was roughly three times the height of a cadet and nine cadets could form one line across the car.
“Forward march into assigned places in your assigned yellow jet train cars!”
The drums started up again and Tel Arman marched into his place inside the train. Once again, the large face of the Emperor looked down at the cadets from each end of the car. As soon as the cadets and officers were in place, the doors closed automatically and the yellow jet train sped into the tunnel that connected the cadet’s dormitory to the battle room. It only took about one bell for the yellow jet train to reach its destination and stop. The cadets were marched out of their assigned yellow jet train cars where they stood in their assigned lines at attention.
“Cadets, forward march to Battle Room!”
Drums thundered in the echo chamber of the corridor that led straight to the Battle Room. The cadets were halted outside the glass walls of the Battle Room where Tel Arman could see many of the chief officers seated at their consoles, looking bleary-eyed from continuous work. But, over-tired as they were, their eyes were glowing with the anticipation of victory. The cadets were not exactly well-rested themselves as they were kept up late the previous night, and then had been roused from bed at least twenty bells earlier than the normal wake up time. Once again, portraits of the Emperor covered the ceiling so that it appeared that many Emperors were looking down on the proceedings in the Battle Room from every direction.
“Cadets, march to assigned consoles!”
Tel Arman marched to the console of Shen Anna, where his group had been assigned to study the progress of the Empire’s reaction to the Fairhead Rebellion. As usual, Shen Anna had her eyes glued to the monitor and her fingers flying over the keyboards. Shen Anna’s third deputy assistant stood behind the console where he could explain to the cadets what the chief officer was doing to crush the revolt.
“Officer Shen Anna has a CF-13 missile aimed for rebel holding in City Parr,” yelled the young man.
Tel Arman elbowed himself in between two cadets to get a clear view of the monitor. A small, pointed building appeared on the screen.
“Note that this building is constructed from materials banned from the Empire,” said the third deputy assistant.
Because of the Fairhead Rebellion, the cadets had been subjected, over the past few days, to a barrage of information about the Fairheads and the many things they did in defiance of imperial orders. Some of the uncivilized customs of the Fairheads were so shocking that Tel Arman felt polluted by the mere knowledge of them. The rebels’ use of large gray blocks in the construction of their stronghold was an example of the Fairheads’ use of unauthorized materials. The cadets had been taught that in ancient times, many worthless entities growing out of the ground or lying within it cluttered the planet and made imperial building difficult until the Empire terminated all such entities.
Chief Officer Anna Shen pushed a button and the monitor filled up with a view inside the building.
“Chief Officer Shen Anna is zooming to the inside of the rebel stronghold to confirm rebel activity inside stronghold.”
Tel Arman saw in the monitor a group of ragged-looking boys singing a song under the direction of an anxious-looking man, while a scattered few rebels sat on benches. All of the boys and the man conducting them had bright, yellowish hair. Time after time, teachers explained to the cadets that a fair head did not necessarily make one a Fairhead rebel. Some of the greatest imperial officers had fair heads. But it was also true that most of the worst rebels in the Empire’s history were Fairheads. Tel Arman was all the more proud of his deep black hair when he saw the Fairhead rebels on the monitor. Several things, however, proved that these Fairheads were, indeed, rebels. There were no girls singing with the boys and imperial law forbad the forming of any group that excluded members of one sex or the other. Nobody in the building wore the imperial insignia. Most serious of all, there was a large picture of a man with his arms outstretched high on the wall overlooking the singers in the place where the Emperor’s picture should have been.
“Who is that pictured man?” asked another cadet.
“The pictured man is the false emperor whom the rebels follow,” the third deputy assistant replied. “They do not pay homage to the true Emperor of the Empire. The children are undoubtedly singing a rebellious song. Chief Officer Shen Anna will send a microphone missile into the site to confirm rebellious singing.”
Chief Officer Shen Anna keyed in the formula for that operation and the sound of the boys’ voices exploded over the console’s speaker. The tune of the song they were singing was odd to Tel Arman’s ears, so odd that it hardly qualified as music. It was nothing like the imperial songs that the cadets learned. That was rebellion enough. Only imperial songs were allowed in the Empire on the grounds that any other kind of music would be divisive. Tel Arman noted one boy in the group who looked as if he were drugged by the music. Neither music nor anything else should have such an effect on a citizen of the Empire. That rebel boys would sing such divisive songs only stood to reason. They weren’t going to sing them for long.
Loud cheering broke out from a group of cadets standing behind the console of another officer. Victory for the Empire was one step nearer. The cadets proceeded to sing the first verse of the Rebel Oblivion Song.
“The Empire commends Chief Officer Paran Torn,” said a High Chief Officer over the loudspeaker.
“Note the anti-imperial musical style of this singing and the clear rebellion of the words,” said the third deputy assistant. “Clearly it is their intent to undermine the Empire.”
The melody coming through the local speaker was starting to make more sense to Tel Arman, but that did not make the music any the less rebellious. What words Tel Arman picked up had to do with casting down the mighty from their seat and raising up the lowly. Surely the words were directed at the mighty Empire that rightfully ruled the world.
“Rebel content of singing is confirmed,” said the third deputy chief officer. “Rebels must be terminated immediately. An explosive missile is being aimed at the rebellious children singing their rebellious song.”
A broken circle with lines radiating from the circle appeared on the monitor at a touch of a key by Chief Officer Shen’s second deputy assistant. The circle was moved about until it focused squarely on the boys.
“Missile will be fired!” yelled the assistant.
Chief Officer Shen Anna punched the red key and the explosion filled the screen for the period of about half a bell. Then the smoke cleared and the cadets were treated to a clear view of the rubble. The building was totally destroyed and what boys were visible looked as dead as children could be. Among those bodies was the crushed face of the boy who had so contemptuously thrown himself into the song denouncing the Empire.
“Attack is successful!” announced the first deputy assistant to chief officer Shen Anna. “Cadet squad may give three-fold cheer and sing the second verse of the Rebel Oblivion Song.”
Tel Arman and his fellow cadets belted out the cheers and sang the second verse of the Rebel Oblivion Song to purge themselves of the rebellious song they had been forced to listen to, however briefly.
“The Empire commends Chief Officer Shen Anna,” the High Chief Officer announced over the loudspeaker.
Cheers and imperial songs were punched out throughout the Imperial Battle Room as rebel holdings elsewhere were demolished. Tel Arman watched Shen Anna destroy several more buildings until everything blurred into one act of destruction.
“Note the map on the big screen at front,” said the deputy assistant. “The rebel city has been bisected. Troops are now landing on site. There is no more resistance. We have broken the back of the rebels. Note the focus on Chief Officer Shen Anna’s monitor.”
Tel Arman shifted his gaze back to the smaller monitor which tracked Imperial troops marching down a main thoroughfare before a totally subdued population.
“We’ll make loyal imperial citizens out of them yet,” muttered one of the girls.
“You can’t trust rebels like them,” said a boy, “not even as imperial custodians. Never know when they might throw a bomb at us. I say you level the city and solve it that way.”
Tel Arman understood the logic of that, but somehow he didn’t like the idea. He didn’t know why. The only bad idea was an idea that undermined the Empire and leveling a rebel city was one sure way of preserving the Empire.
“Victory is now complete,” announced the High Chief Officer over the loudspeaker. “A full imperial victory celebration will take place tonight in the Grand Central Imperial Auditorium. Schedules will be posted on the monitors. All officers and cadets will now sing the Imperial Victory Hymn.”
A quartet of bugles sounded out the opening fanfare and all officers and cadets sang the song they had all known by heart since they were old enough to sing. This time it was special because this was the first time in Tel Arman’s life that he had sung the hymn after a major imperial victory. When the hymn was completed, cadets were marched out of the Battle Room and lined up in lines facing each other. At the command of Don Elsen, each cadet struck the hands of the cadet in the directly across in further celebration of the victory. Then they were marched to the blue jet train that took them to the cadet’s dining room for morning eating.
In the dining room, Tel Arman lined up with his fellow cadets to receive his hot packets of imperial food from the imperial scullions on serving duty. The uniforms of the imperial scullions had the same design as those of the cadets, but while the cadets’ uniforms were dark red with a black and yellow zig-zag stripe, the uniforms of the imperial scullions had yellow in their black zig-zag stripes.
“Receive imperial meat packet!” yelled one imperial scullion to Tel Arman.
“One imperial meat packet received!” Tel Arman yelled back, trying to be heard over other cadets and scullions yelling at each other.
“Receive imperial veg pack!” yelled an imperial scullion further down the line.
“One imperial veg pack received!” Tel Arman yelled back.
“Receive imperial sweet pack!”
“One imperial sweet pack received!”
After the morning eating, Tel Arman and his fellow cadets were marched to the blue jet train that took them back to the cadets’ dormitory. To his surprise, Tel Arman discovered that the song the rebellious boys were singing was running through his head as he stood in his place in the blue jet train. As he listened to it again, or as much of it as he could remember, it was clear that there was no question that the tune itself was rebellious, that the rebellious song had nothing of the grandeur and triumphalism of true imperial music. He tried to shove the subversive music out of his head and replace it with the music he would sing at the victory celebration coming up that night, but the evil music continued to drill its way into him, making Tel Arman wonder if he was a rebel in spite of his total devotion to the Empire and to the Emperor.
Back at the cadets’ dormitory, Tel Arman had only just enough time to make his bed before it was time to go to the rehearsal of the elite cadets’ choir.
“Sing-Song Tel Arman,” jeered a boy who was making his bed nearby.
“You should not be jealous of any work a fellow citizen does for the Empire,” Tel Arman retorted, using the standard reply to such expressions of jealousy.
The trouble, Tel Arman noted, was that telling people not to be jealous did not keep people from being jealous. Almost every cadet who was not an elite singer was jealous of anyone who was, even if they were in elite groups that made elite singers jealous of them. With his sleeping space in order, Tel Arman went to the orange train that would take him to his rehearsal.
“Attention!” yelled Tarboc Ductor, the heavy-set, red-faced man who conducted the choirs.
The imperial rehearsal room became instantly quiet.
“Elite cadet singers, we will go over your particular parts in the festive arrangement of the third victory anthem. This afternoon, at the thirty-third bell, we will hold the dress rehearsal for all musicians and tonight, you will sing in the presence to the Emperor and the top chiefs of the imperial staff and the imperial cabinet. You will sing in a manner fitting to the occasion. Your first particular section is highly exposed but, if sung correctly and with strength, will be a most effective musical expression of glory for the Empire. The bugle ensembles will quiet down briefly to set up your entry where you will sing of hope for the future that the Empire’s youth can offer. Ready! Sing!”
Tel Arman entered with the other cadets on the conductor’s cue. This was Tel Arman’s favorite part of the third victory anthem and he wanted to make the most of it. But when the boys sang about how children grow as the imperial domes in the centers of the Empire, a memory of the rebellious song kicked in for Tel Arman. If the mighty were cast down, as the Fairheads sang, then might the imperial domes come crashing down? Tarboc Ductor stopped the singing with a crashing blow of his baton against the nearest post.
“Who sang that unimperial corruption of the melody and the words?”
Tel Arman’s face turned as red as the conductor’s when several fingers pointed at him. Tel Arman raised his hand to acknowledge his fault.
“What were you singing?”
“I mixed up the words and the tune,” Tel Arman admitted.
“How did you mix up the words and the tune?”
“My cadet group was forced to hear a rebellious song before the rebel holding was righteously destroyed by the chief officer our squad was observing,” Tel Arman replied. “I will not let it happen again.”
“That will be sixty choir demerits,” said Tarboc Ductor. “You should never, under any circumstances listen to a rebels’ song, not even in the line of military duty. It was not necessary that you hear the song. You should have closed your ears to it. I order you to erase all memory of the rebels’ song from your mind. If I hear a trace of a rebel song again out of this choir, you will be ejected, not only from the elite choir, but from the entire choir and you will undergo a cadet’s court martial. Is that understood?”
Tel Arman understood only too well. For the rest of the rehearsal, he concentrated very carefully on what he was singing and he dropped out briefly any time he feared he might stray into the rebellious song. Tel Arman also understood what would be in store for him as soon as the rehearsal as over, as he could see the expression of anticipation on the faces of the other cadets that overcomes them when it is considered necessary to give a deviant cadet a word bombing. Before this time, Tel Arman had always been among the cadets who administered a word bombing to somebody else. Tel Arman was famous for inventing the most imaginative insults. Now that it was about to happen to him, Tel Arman felt that his life had suddenly been shattered, as if a bomb had struck him and torn him apart. The more Tel Arman reproached himself for allowing the rebel song to entangle his thoughts, the more the rebel song invaded the territory of his mind.
As soon as rehearsal was dismissed, the other cadets gathered around him. Two officers stationed themselves at a small distance to make sure the word bombing proceeded as it should. Tel Arman’s only chance of regaining a good position among the cadets depended on facing the word bombing without flinching. But even as the other cadets formed a tight circle around Tel Arman, memories of the rebel music made it impossible for him to look the cadets back in the eye as resolutely as he needed to.
“It seems to me you’re soft on rebels,” said one cadet.
“You want to join the rebels now that they’ve lost, don’t you?”
“I don’t remember a thing that the rebels sang. It didn’t even sound like music. How can you remember it so well?”
“Must be because you’re a rebel.”
“Have a bomb on you?”
“Going to throw a bomb at the Emperor when you bow down to him?”
And so it went on relentlessly for two or three bells until Tel Arman was nearly convinced he was a rebel against the Empire and that he was planning to sabotage the performance that night. At both the midday eating and the evening eating, nobody in his squad spoke to him. Word gets around quickly when a cadet is word bombed.
When the big moment came for his choir to process through the Grand Imperial Festival Auditorium to the stage, Tel Arman could hardly believe it was happening. He marched to the drum rolls and bugle fanfares as though in a dream. In his turn, he walked right by the Emperor’s seat in the middle of the first row and bowed to the great man whose picture he had seen constantly every where he went. It was an unsettling moment. Although the Emperor had much the same commanding look as he did in his ubiquitous pictures, Tel Arman could see that the man was older and weaker than pictured. As he continued on his way to the stage, the thought crossed Tel Arman’s mind that the rebellious song he heard might be more fitting for the old man than the festive victory anthem they were about to sing. Even so, Tel Arman stood proudly in his place as the other elite choirs processed and filled up the stage. Fireworks exploded throughout the auditorium, dripping the imperial colors of dark red and yellow and black everywhere.
With the procession complete, the Minister of War stood up and gave a long speech, punctuated by many fanfares from the bugle bands, recounting the Empire’s latest victory against the latest challenge to its universal righteous rule. Tel Arman’s feet were beginning to ache by the time the speech ended, but he knew that the music would give him something else to think about.
At last, Tarboc Ductor strode out to the middle of the stage and bowed low before the Emperor. Then he turned around and gave the cue for the bass bugles to start the fanfare followed by the tenor bugles, alto bugles and then treble bugles, all supported by thundering drum rolls. All choirs entered in praise of the Empire’s righteous reign. Tel Arman’s heart swelled more than it ever had before over this stirring opening. The concluding chord of the first section ended with a crash of the percussion that resounded throughout the auditorium and surely throughout the Empire. The first big moment for the cadets’ elite choir had come. Tel Arman opened his mouth to sing but, to his horror, the rebellious song came out. The boy next to Tel Arman jabbed him in the ribs and then other nearby cadets looked at him. Red fury filled the face of Tarboc Ductor and he gave Tel Arman the signal to leave the choir immediately. The cadet could hardly believe it had happened. More fireworks exploded as he started to make his way out, his disgrace obvious to all. Thundering drum rolls shook the vast building. But there were not supposed to be drum rolls in that place in the music and the fireworks were not the imperial colors. The full choir made an ear-shattering, strangely discordant entry. That was not supposed to happen, either. Suddenly cadets were pushing Tel Arman back towards his place and then a couple more cadets knocked him down and trampled over him. From the floor of the stage, Tel Arman caught a glimpse of sky where a giant picture of the Emperor should have been. A fireball blew up the balcony and another explosion sent the roof caving in on the choir. Then a sharp blow to the head knocked Tel Arman out.
Proceed to Chapter the First of Part the Second