The Tree Remembers:
Chapter 05

  “I’d like to welcome Admiral Barnes to the meeting,” President Minho Rangi said to the other people in her office at the Presidential Residence building in downtown Twin Cities.  “As well as her husband Jaren Snow, the ranking on world Emissary to Kobol, and former President Emily Sato.  All three I think have experience and a perspective which might be valuable.  I’d also like to welcome of course Ambassador Bill of the Bobbins who I’m sure you’ve all met at this point.”  The other half dozen people in the room she recognized as a couple top military officials she’d met in passing, and several of the president’s top secretaries she was Kathryn was familiar with but hadn’t met in person before today.

  Kathryn shot a look at Jaren, hoping he would correct the president on their marital status, but he only shrugged at her with his eyes.  Kathryn in response only sighed back at him with her eyes.  She turned back to the president, deciding it not the time to be concerned with something like that.  President Rangi had almond shaped eyes which always appeared to be subtly squinting even at rest, and long dark hair always kept in a professional looking braided updo.  She had almond skin and had the softening body of a woman who had been thin all of her life but hadn’t figured out how to manage her body’s changes as it hit middle age.

  “I would like to begin by thanking Ambassador Bill on behalf of all Bobbins for their restrained response to the abhorrent attack on their embassy, and offer our deepest condolences over the loss of his three comrades.” 

  “We appreciate that President Rangi,” Bill offered through his mirror ball as it glowed with a distinct blue of sadness.  “We are here only at the continuing invitation of the Haven government and though we feel the loss, we continue to wish to maintain a presence here in the spirit of friendship for as long as we are welcome.”

  “To that end Mr. Wilson,” Rangi said, turning to her state security chief.  “Do we know who perpetrated this attack?”

  “We’ve arrested some people,” the beady eyed squat man answered.  “It wasn’t difficult to track them down, but we’re having trouble getting other contacts and information about what organization they were working for.”

  “Because they probably weren’t,” former president Emily Sato said, Kathryn’s friend and mentor.

  “Excuse me?” Rankin responded.  The animosity was cordial, but plain to see how personal it was.  They were from different parties, and differed greatly in governing philosophy.  Worse, on Rankin’s first run at the presidency, it had been Emily who had beaten her when running for her second term.  Inviting Emily to this meeting was, to Rankin’s credit, out of a wish to have a diversity of opinions on how to respond to the bombing, but they could only bury so much of the contempt they had for each other.

  “Why are you assuming they were working for some larger organization?” Emily clarified.  “I find it far more likely they were just some dipshits who came up with this all on their own, one of many such small group of dipshits who might come to the same conclusion.”

  After taking a respectably brief moment to glare at Emily, Rankin turned back to Wilson looking for a response. 

  “It’s possible,” Wilson shrugged.  “But it’s an extreme course of action for just three dip— three individuals to dream up and execute all on their own.”

  “Such is the nature of extremism,” Jaren offered without looking up as he leaned against a back wall with his arms folded and one hand to his mouth.  Rankin looked up at him for a few moments to see if he’d offer anything more, but he didn’t.

  “So what can we do about it?” Rankin asked Wilson.  “How can we make sure this doesn’t happen again?”

  “Crack down,” Wilson answered.  “We squeeze the men we picked up for more information.  If they give up names, we bring them in and squeeze them for more names.  Whether that works or not we step up our surveillance, both digital and human.  We start tapping phones, monitoring web traffic, send agents out to infiltrate groups who might have extremist sympathies.”

  Emily scoffed.  Rankin looked down with a heavy sigh of extreme irritation, pretty obviously just putting great effort into stifling her impulse to snap at her.  “You have thoughts, President Sato?”

  “You’re going about this all wrong.”

  “Then please, enlighten us.”

  “Squeeze me hard enough and I’ll give you names of my ‘terrorist compatriots’,” she said with air quotes.  “Torturing people isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

  “I did not—” Wilson started but was stopped by Rankin putting her hand up to him before turning back to Emily, who just sighed and took a slow, exasperated look around the office that used to be hers.

  “What the hell happened to this office…” Emily asked.

  “We painted.”

  “Not what I mean Minho.”

  The president glared at her.  Being a former president herself, Emily calling the current one by her first name was not strictly out of protocol, but still a privilege that would typically be reserved for someone she considered a friend.

  “Cracking down on the Bobbin’s behalf would only play into their paranoias and resentments, can’t you see that?  In their eyes, in the eyes of everyone out there who hasn’t made up their minds yet on how they should feel about the Bobbins and the embassy bombing, it would just tilt them over to thinking of the government and the Bobbins working together against them.”

  “That would be our assessment as well,” Bill offered with bronze support.

  “Then what would you have us do, nothing?” Rankin asked.

  “You need to integrate the Bobbin, humanize them,” Emily answered, to which Rankin scoffed again and looked up as she shook her head in disbelief.

  “No, she’s right,” Kathryn said.  “The Bobbins, most people here in the cities have never met one, never even seen one in person, but they go by that embassy all the time and are reminded of them, curious about them, afraid of what they don’t know and understand.  You need to do a, um, a…”

  “A charm offensive,” Emily offered.

  “Right, exactly.” Kathryn affirmed.  “Get them out there in the public, have a few of them go on the nightly shows, do interviews, humanize them… in a word.  Have them explain what happened in the war, how they are different from the ones who destroyed Kobol, what the Link is and how it corrupted some of them, why it can’t happen again!”

  “Is that even true?” Jaren asked.  “Have we ever bothered to assess that?”

  Bill turned to Jaren as his mirror ball turned yellow with curiosity.  “How do you mean?” he asked.

  “Can we be certain that your people can never be corrupted by the Link again?  Do you even know why that sect decided to leave it on in the first place?”

  Bill’s ball went a deep shade of magenta, something Kathryn hadn’t really seen before.  In context of his answer she interpreted it as a deep uncertainty and discomfort.

  “We… have studied the issue, and the truth is we don’t really know.  Our best assessment is that a small number of Bobbins were relying on it too much, and eventually just forgot to turn it off.  After a time they found each other and formed a hive mind, which then started trying to recruit others.  We may not know exactly how it began, but we have put effective safeguards in place to prevent it from happening again.” 

  Bill seemed more defensive than Kathryn had ever seen him which concerned even her a little bit.  “Beyond the obvious of introducing a hard limit on the amount of time any Bobbin can have their Link activated, I think you underestimate the impact of all of us having the experience of the way in our Link whenever we use it.  The Link is…” he struggled to explain, “not just a communication or information retrieval system, it is… transcendent.  It blends us in with the lifetime experiences of every Bobbin who has ever used it.  Our internal war is a massive constituent of that collective consciousness now, the horrible losses, the shattered relationships, the horror experienced by those who committed atrocities and then were saved from the runaway Link and have to live with knowing what their hands did beyond their control.”

  All three of Bill’s eye stalks turned towards Jaren, something they rarely did and what Kathryn had come to understand as a sign of reverence or deference, a total focus of attention which was rare for a species with natural total situational awareness.  “I remember destroying Kobol, Mr. Snow, as do all of my people now, as well as every murder of one Bobbin by another during the war.  We are haunted by it, and I am frankly offended at the suggestion that we would ever allow anything like that to ever happen again.”

  Kathryn knew Jaren well enough to read him pretty well.  She knew that a part of him wanted to lurch over to Bill and wring the closest thing he could find on him to a neck.  She’d always admired his passion, but not the violent impulse which could go with it since the war.  It was the blending of his passion and his restraint that made him the passionate yet even tempered man she’d fallen in love with. 

  She could also see the part of him that despite his anger over what had happened to Kobol, was still able to find sympathy for Bill and his people upon hearing what they were suffering as a result of having perpetrated it.  His blending of deep sensitivity with intense passion is what made her still love him even if they couldn’t be together anymore.

  “I didn’t know that,” Jaren responded softly.  “It’s actually… somewhat comforting.  Thank you.”  He paused for a few moments, looking down at the ground.  “They’re right.  People need to know that.”

  “We have to make them seen, and known, and understood,” Emily reiterated.  “The public has a void of understanding and knowledge about the Bobbins, which in the absence of anything else is filled with fear, hatred, and distrust.  We need to displace that with something positive, something known and understood which can buffer against encroaching xenophobia, make it clear the difference between the Bobbins we call friends and the ones we call enemies.”

  President Rankin quickly gave her head a subtle shake as she folded her arms and lifted a thoughtful hand to her mouth.  It was quick enough that Kathryn was pretty sure she hadn’t intended to let it out but wasn’t quick enough to stifle it.  She had been leaning back and half sitting on the front of her desk during the meeting, but now turned to go behind her desk and look out the large bay windows overlooking the cities from the top of one of the tallest buildings in them.

  “That will be all everyone, thank you.”

  Emily shook her head more deliberately as she stood up to leave.

  “Mr. Wilson, please remain a moment.”

  Kathryn, Emily, Jaren, Bill, and the other presidential staff exited the office, who left for elsewhere in the building. 

  “Jackass…” Emily said once the others were out of earshot.

  Bill’s ball turned grey with confusion as two of his eye stalks looked up at Emily.

  “She’s going to ignore the suggestion and crack down instead,” Jaren explained to him.

  “Why would she do that?” Bill asked.  “It’s clearly the incorrect course of action.”

  “Because she sympathizes with them,” Kathryn answered.  “You have to understand Bill… people were angry and confused and scared after the war.  Rankin is who people elected to office less than a year after the war ended, she’s…

  “A fascist,” Emily concluded, seeming to nearly spit as she did.

  “That might be…” Jaren started to say.  She could tell he was torn.  He sympathized with her political direction, but not how hard line she could be about it.  Instead of concluding his thought he just sighed and looked down while shaking his head.  Kathryn could see how run down he was, how little of that spark she loved about him was left, and it made her sad.  It made her want to reach out to him, but it wasn’t her place anymore.

  Kathryn had a moment of finding it interesting what an odd menagerie of acquaintances she’d accumulated in her life.  Former president, Koboli aristocracy, bug like alien, ancient simulant, alien ship AI transplanted into an ancient simulant body… strange where life can take you.

  “She’s wrong,” Kathryn said.

  “Of course she’s wrong.  Who’s going to stop her though?” Emily asked Kathryn pointedly.

  “Maybe we can make some of those efforts independently,” Bill suggested.  “Make ourselves known and seen.  The limitations this administration has put on us in that respect would make it challenging, but we could explore ways we might work around them to that aim.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Jaren said.  “Let me know if I can help.”

  Bill’s mirror ball turned a sincere shade of pink as he was surprised and touched by Jaren’s offer.  Bill had respectfully avoided Jaren as much as was practical since the war, knowing how difficult things were for him and how easy it was for someone to blame all Bobbins.  “Thank you Jaren, I greatly appreciate the offer.”

  “Well,” Emily concluded.  “Lunch?”

  “I’ve got to get going,” Jaren explained.  “My ship back to Kobol leaves this afternoon.”

  “And I must get back to the embassy and assist with repairs,” Bill explained.

  “I could lunch,” Kathryn answered.

  Emily threw her thumbs up with an agreeable scrunch of her face and turned to leave.

  “Jaren, can I have a minute?”

  “Of course.”

  Bill had been around humans long enough to understand basic social cues and was able to infer they needed to speak alone.  “Good day Kathryn, Jaren,” he offered before scurrying down the hall as they did, his taloned legs clacking noisly on the tile floor as he went.

  “What’s up?” Jaren asked.

  “Husband?”

  “It’s not like I said it,” he replied defensively.

  “Well you didn’t dispute it either.”

  “Yeah, well neither did you.”

  Kathryn tilted her head to the side and looked away, not wanting to escalate it into a thing.

  “Look, it’s just…” he shifted his jaw around, seeming to feel around for a way to say what he needed to.  “I didn’t correct her because… in my mind, we… kind of… are still married.”

  “Didn’t you file the paperwork?” Kathryn asked with confused concern.

  “Of course I filed the damn paperwork!” he snapped in an angry whisper which was still loud enough to draw the unwanted attention of some people down the hall.

  “Well then what do you mean?”

  Jaren sighed in exasperation and looked up at the ceiling.  “I know it doesn’t mean anything to you but we’re still temple sealed,” he explained.  “No paperwork can undo that.”

  “Oh,” Kathryn responded, unsure what else to say.  Kobol had been founded as a Mormon extrasolar colonial project.  A lot had changed in the better part of a millennium, but it was still deeply rooted in their culture.  Kathryn found herself wondering for the first time how much the remaining Koboli were retreating to the essentialist foundations of their culture, how much Jaren himself might be.  “I see.”

  Jaren shrugged.  There wasn’t much else to say.  She knew enough of Koboli culture to know that after that religious ceremony she’d respectfully participated in as part of his traditions, traditions which he himself had largely dismissed at the time and said it was mostly on account of his family’s insistence, had a deeper permanence for those who bought into it.  The belief was that while civil marriages ended at death, temple sealing persisted the union to eternity in the afterlife, an afterlife neither Kathryn nor Jaren believed in.  It was the kind of thing that could only be undone in exceptional circumstances.  Kathryn also understood that being sealed as a family meant a deeper connection to Maggie for him, something which would be disrupted if she tried to push for a separation of that sort, and whatever else she may feel about that she didn’t have any will to try to take that away from him.

  “I’m sorry Jaren, I… I just don’t know what to say to that.”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Jaren shrugged.  “I acknowledge our divorce.  I didn’t mean anything by not correcting Rankin.  It just made me hesitate long enough that the moment had passed.  I’m sorry, if it comes up again I’ll be quicker to correct someone.”

  “I could have said something too, I’m sorry.”

  Jaren nodded in acknowledgement, and when Kathryn held her hands out in a subtle invitation to a conciliatory hug, he accepted and embraced her.

  “That’s kind of fucked up about the Bobbins,” he said over her shoulder.  “About everything they all remember?  I wonder what it’s like…”

  “Yeah,” she answered.  “Me too…”

   

  ☼         ☼         ☼

   

  “That woman is poison,” Emily said before taking another drink of her mid-day mimosa.

  Kathryn didn’t respond.  She was lost in thought looking out over the ocean from the beach from the patio of their beachfront restaurant.  She sun glinting off of the gentle waves in the harbour hurt her eyes, but in a way that made her feel the reality of being here and alive in that moment than any significant pain.

  “She’s going to get a lot of people killed.”

  “You ever think about what it’s like for them to be in the Link?” Kathryn asked.

  “What?” Emily answered, a little annoyed at her asking out of the blue after ignoring her own remarks.

  “The Bobbin Link.  Ever wonder what it’s like?”

  “I haven’t really thought about it much to be honest,” the older woman answered.  She had twenty years on Kathryn, and though she was a bit of a waif of a woman, she exuded a strength in the way she stood tall and the way her almond shaped dark eyes contrasted with her pale skin and shone as she glared people down in domination over them.  Kathryn had always admired what a formidable woman she was even with her sleight frame.  Looking at her now she also appreciated how pretty her long light grey hair was, peppered as it was with interwoven locks of its original black colour.

  “I hadn’t much before today, but I can’t stop thinking about it now since that meeting.  Imagine experiencing other minds like that, imagine feeling your conflicts from your enemies’ perspective, them being able to feel it from yours.  Imagine how much better you could understand people, you parents, your— your children.”

  “I think I value the privacy of my mind too much for something like that,” Emily offered as she poked at the contents of her drink.

  “I mean I certainly get that impulse too, believe me,” Kathryn chuckled as she turned her attention back to her lunch companion.  “But at the same time, all of those private thoughts, all of the things that you’d never share with another soul, if someone had that kind of access to you, it would come with all of your rationalizations and justifications, all of the reasons you felt that way, all of the context for the shameful things you did and said.  I find that kind of deep understanding with someone, somehow bridging that unbridgeable gulf that exists between two people no matter how close they get…” Kathryn grew distant again at the thought as she turned to look out over the bay again.  “I think it could be transcendent.  Numinous, even.  Sublime.

  “Humans can be so alienated,” she said as she watched a ship slowly disappear into the horizon.  “So alienating…” she thought out loud.

  “Going somewhere with this?” Emily asked as she noisily sucked at the last remnants of her drink out of the bottom of the hurricane glass.

  “Yeah, I am.  You’re right.  Rangi is a problem.  She’s going to make everything worse.  She has no imagination for anything else.”

  “In that, you have my complete agreement.  She’s a toxic demagogue.  I’ve run into people like her throughout my career.  She’s exactly the wrong person for this moment.  She had to tamp it down to be palatable to a more self-respecting people, but all the while those who were listening could hear her dog whistles about the Bobbins.  The more this creeping and paranoia deepens and takes hold, the freer she’ll feel to lean into it and harness it for her own agenda.  Even if that’s just to get reelected, the social damage it will leave in its wake is incalculable.

  Kathryn sighed, not wanting to spark Emily’s ambition for her too early but needing to ask.  “You still think there’s a pathway for me to make a run at her office?”

  Emily’s eyes widened as they grew sharper.  She gestured to the server across the patio to bring them two fresh drinks as she leaned towards Kathryn.

  “Don’t flirt with me if you’re not going to put it in, Kathryn,” she said, her eyes as alive as Kathryn had ever seen them.

  “Somebody has to stop her,” Kathryn said.  “If I thought anybody else could I’d never think about it, but I just don’t see anybody else with the juice.”

  “Oh, and you’ve got plenty, don’t you?  War hero?  Legend of the space program?  Beautiful progressive wife and daughter?  Pretty but sharp like me?” she added with a smirk.  “Nobody would even run against you for the party nomination, I’m sure of it.”

  “Don’t get the wrong idea Emily, I’m not committing to anything, I just want to hear you out about it, alright?”

  “Alright, foreplay it is then.”

  “God, between you and Margaret, I swear…”

  Emily just grinned at her, and then thanked the server when he brought their drinks, eagerly starting in on her own.

  “It’s just… I’ve been wrestling with whether I really want to do something like this or if I just really want to do anything but stay at home retired.  That meeting today though… I might have felt something.  Some bit of spark I haven’t felt since the war.  I need to think this over and consult with my family though.”

  “Of course,” Emily offered, restraining her frustration at Kathryn’s waffling after getting her all excited.

  “Actually I have this trip I’m leaving for in a couple days.  It’ll last a couple weeks and I’ll be with them the whole time.  It’ll give me a chance to think it over and discuss it with them.  I was already planning on trying to come to a conclusion one way or another about going for the senate seat, but that’s escalated now, hasn’t it?”

  “Looks that way, doesn’t it?”

  “Okay Emily, three weeks.  I’ll have an answer for you in three weeks, alright?”

  “Sounds good,” the older woman replied.  “I will of course ignore you, and immediately start operating under the assumption that I’ll be launching your campaign in three weeks.”

  “Of course you will…” Kathryn sighed with a mirthful smile.

  “I mean what the hell else have I got going on?” Emily laughed.