“Desperation is a fire,” Ruga added. “It burns bright but it must have a chimney, an outlet.”
“A chimney?” Odalon’s eyebrows crept up.
The shaman rolled his eyes. “Fine. Desperation, as exhibited by that creature, is basically a prolonged lower state of fight-or-flight response. Where the fight-or-flight shot of adrenaline is a reaction to the actual manifestation of danger, desperation is the result of a perceived future danger. It primes the organism, forcing it to actively seek an avenue of escape before the danger actually manifests, resulting in a complicated cascade of hormonal interactions. You get higher metabolic rate, an entire slew of glands functioning at a greater output, obsessive thoughts, and so on.”
I stopped and pinched myself.
“I know,” Odalon told me. “When I discovered he has an advanced degree in microbiology, it was quite a shock to me as well.”
“It’s not a healthy state of being,” Ruga continued. “You are not designed to function in a state of desperation for a prolonged period of time.”
“It’s a short-term metabolic burst,” Odalon added. “The body will seek to vent some of that built-up potential. If you are under a great amount of stress, you might have a panic attack, for example.”
“Turan Adin is desperate, but he is also trapped,” Ruga said. “It rolls off him. To go back to my earlier metaphor, if desperation is a fire, his fire is raging inside a stone bunker. I don’t know what is keeping him where he is—if he is indebted, if he is disciplined, if he feels he is there for the right cause—but whatever it is, it has created a deep-seated conflict within his psyche.”
“He won’t be able to sustain that kind of pressure,” Odalon said. “His body and his soul desperately want to escape, but his mind is keeping him trapped. He is tired and he’s subconsciously looking for an escape. When he realizes that there is only one escape route available to him, he’ll take it. He’ll kill himself in six months.”
“I would go as far as eight, but yes,” Ruga said.
“It makes him incredibly dangerous,” Odalon said, “because he doesn’t care. He has no thought of self-preservation beyond the basic instincts of his body.”
“He will never take his own life. He will try to die in battle,” the shaman added. “And I do not want to be on the battlefield when he decides that it is his last day.”
“That’s horrible,” I said.
“War is horrible,” Odalon said. “It ruins people.”
“War on Nexus is especially horrible,” Ruga said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Modern war is, in an odd way, merciful,” Odalon said. “Our technology permits us to precision-bomb strategic targets. When casualties occur, they are typically swift.”
“Death from high-density beam bombardment takes point three seconds,” Ruga said. “It is a loss of life, irreversible and irreplaceable, but it is a death without suffering. Advanced weaponry doesn’t function correctly on Nexus. Orbital bombardment is out of the question because environmental anomalies prevent accurate targeting. Trying to pound your enemy with artillery is pointless as well.”
“We’ve had weapons explode,” Odalon said. “There is a record of a concentrated artillery assault in the first year of the war. The projectiles disappeared and thirty minutes later materialized above the House that fired them.”
“I remember reading about that.” Ruga smirked.
“It is an up close and personal war, fought with savage weapons,” Odalon said. “At first when you’re young and dumb and you hear about it, you think it will be glorious. That you will be like the hero of old, ripping through the ranks of your enemy. Then you find out what six hours of fighting with your sword is really like. The first hour, if you survive, is exciting. The scent of blood is intoxicating. The second hour, you are injured but you keep going. The third hour, you realize you’ve had your fill of blood. You want to be done. You want off the battlefield. In the fourth, you notice the faces of people you kill. You hear their screams as you hack off their limbs. It is no longer an abstract enemy. It is a living being that you are ripping apart. It is dying by your hand, right there in front of you. In the fifth, you bleed and vomit, and still you push forward, punishing your body and soul. In the sixth, you collapse finally, grateful that you survived or simply numb. Everything smells like blood and the smell of it makes you ill. You’re hurting and you try to keep your eyes open, because if you close them, you might see the faces of those you killed, so you look upon the battlefield and you see that nothing was gained and, as the medic is patching you up, you realize you must do it again tomorrow.”
It sounded like hell.
“That was good,” Ruga said.
“Thank you,” Odalon said.
“We’ve become hopelessly civilized,” Ruga said. “We are not suited for that kind of war. I don’t think our ancestors were even suited for it. They died much easier than we do, so a single long battle could decide the course of a war. It takes a lot more damage to kill one of us now, so every evening all those who are still breathing end up in recuperative tanks, and a few days later, they are back out again. Endless battle. Endless war.”
“Endless suffering.” Now I understood why Arland’s face had changed when he mentioned it.
“Yes,” Ruga said. “And now there is no hope for peace.”
“I wouldn’t say no hope,” Odalon said. “That is rather bleak.”
“Your people attacked the Merchants and my people attacked the Arbitrator.” Ruga sighed. “Mark my words: this is the beginning of the end.”
We were walking back from the landing field when Turan Adin jumped off his balcony. He did it very casually, as if clearing the thirty-foot drop was like stepping down the stairs. The vampire and the otrokar at my side went for their weapons.
“May I walk with you?” he asked me in his quiet, snarl-tinted voice.
“Of course.” I looked at the two clergymen. “Please excuse us.”
Odalon and Ruga hesitated for a long moment. “As you wish,” Odalon said finally. “We will go on ahead.”
They walked on. I waited until they were a short distance ahead and turned to Turan Adin. “Was there something specific you wanted to discuss?”
“No.”
Maybe he just wanted some company. “I was going to take a few minutes and sit in my favorite spot to collect myself. Would you like to join me?”
He nodded.
I led him to the left, past the apple trees to an old overgrown hedge. I made my way through a narrow gap and waited for him. A small pond sat in the horseshoe clearing, bordered by the hedge. Lily pads floated on the surface, and two large koi, one orange, one white with red spots, gently moved through the shallow water. A small wooden bench waited by the pond. I sat on one end. He sat on the other.
We sat quietly and watched the koi.
“Did you make this?” he asked.
“Yes. When I was growing up, my job was to tend the gardens. It’s harder here, in Texas, because of the water restrictions, but the inn collects rainwater.”
“It’s nice,” he said.
“Thank you. I’m hoping to work on this more in the summer. Make it a little bigger. Maybe plant some flowers over there and put a hammock up so I can come here with my book and read…”
He jumped off the bench and left. One moment he was there, and the next I was alone. I felt him moving back to the inn, inhumanly fast. He had jumped up, scaled the wall, gotten up to his balcony and disappeared into his rooms.
What did I say?
I sat by myself for another minute or two. The serenity I was looking for refused to come.
The inn chimed. The otrokars were trying to get my attention from their quarters and something was happening in the stables.
I sighed, got up, and headed for the stables. Inside, Nuan Sama, Nuan Cee’s niece who had helped Hardwir repair Officer Marais’s car, crouched by one of the donkey-camel beasts. Jack sat on the bench, watching her. At Nuan Cee’s request, I had given her clearance to come to the stables every day to tend to the animals. Usually either Jack or Gaston escorted her.