Eric Flint - Mother of Demons

As a human with a good heart, he regretted the suffering of the past. But he thought it had been a necessary evil, an inescapable part of the progress of humanity. Indira, ironically, had a considerably cooler personality than Julius. And she knew, even better than he, that the anguish of human history had been the inevitable accompaniment of human advancement. But she also knew-far, far better than Julius-just how truly horrible and protracted that anguish had been.

Historical suffering, to Julius-as to most people of the early 22nd century-was a pale shadow, an abstraction. He had heard of things, even read about them. He knew who the Mongols were. And Tamerlane.

But Indira had walked the barren vastnesses of Central Asia, where a great civilization had flourished while Europe was a land of fur-clad savages. Before the Mongols came, and Tamerlane. Julius had heard of those things, and read about them upon occasion. Indira had studied the chronicles, and looked at the ruins.

And the bones.

To the warm-hearted Julius, bones were the stuff of his trade. To the cool and distant Indira, each bone had cried out with agony; and horror.

Common bones. Not buried in great sepulchres. The bones of illiterate peasants, lying where they had been kicked aside by conquerors. The bones of the ocean of humanity, the uncountable multitudes of unknown people whose little lives had been the real stuff of history. Without whose endless toil, suffering and perseverance, nothing else would have been possible.

It could be said that the end result of human history had been worth the cost. It was said often, in fact, in the 22nd century. By professional historians as well as laymen.

Indira did not disagree with that assessment. As an historian-certainly as a woman-she had not the slightest romantic illusions about the realities of human life during the long childhood of the species. That period, tens of thousands of years in duration, when a relative handful of hunters and gatherers had been simply a part of the biological landscape of the planet. Tiny cultures, which had been characterized by a degree of social egalitarianism which would not be recaptured until the last century of human history.

Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years of relative peace and social tranquillity. And, she knew as well, lives of utter ignorance; ending at an age when modern humans were barely out of school.

No, modern civilization was worth the price it had cost. Indira had no doubt of it. Many times, back on Earth, she had closed the book she was reading; and heaved a sigh of relief that she was fortunate enough not to have been born in the past. Any part of that past-prehistorical or civilized. She had been blessed with the rare good fortune not to have been a hunter-gatherer; or a slave; or a peasant toiling in the fields of her lord; or the victim of a bombing raid.

Indira knew she had been blessed beyond belief. She had been born in the 22nd century. At the only time in the history of the human race when life was truly all it could be. A time when the daughter of Bengali peasants and Bolivian tin miners could aspire to anything.

And had. She had aspired to the stars, and reached them.

Until, caught in disaster, a courageous captain had chosen to include an historian among the handful of adults who would survive the catastrophe. Plunged, before she was knew what was happening, back into the Bronze Age.

Years ago, Indira had stopped wondering why Captain Knudsen had included her among the survivors. She knew. He had known that, if they survived, his children would need a guide through the terrors of history.

She tried to explain her dilemma to that Captain's son. For, of all the young leaders of the colony, Jens Knudsen was now the least distant. She tried to explain that history held no "secrets"; that there was no guide through its terrors; that anything she would try would inevitably fail of its purpose-not immediately, but over time, twisted into unforeseen pathways. Stumblingly, she tried to explain that the personal freedom, equality and social justice which 22nd century humanity took for granted was the end product of millenia of struggle and suffering. She tried to explain that, in the end, the precondition for that progress was the vast wealth of modern society, which was itself another end product of the long, tortuous, bitter road of history.

How then could she show them the way forward? In a new Bronze Age, a new Time of Troubles, on a new planet? All she could see in the future was an endless vista of pain. Every way forward led nowhere but down, twisting and winding back into the nightmare coils of ancient history.

Jens had listened patiently to her explanation. When she was done, he had simply shrugged.

"I don't doubt you," he said, "but I don't think you really understand. Joseph is absolutely right, and you are absolutely wrong."

"Why?" she cried.

Jens stood and looked down at her. His face, then, had been as cold as Joseph's.

"Because history is not something that used to happen. It is happening now, and we are in it. And things have to be understood, as best we can, and then things will have to be done, as best we can, and we will have to do them. Alone."

He began to walk away, and then turned back.

"I was too young when my father died to remember him. I know only that he tried to do the impossible-he tried to land a spaceship that was never designed for planetfall. He failed, but at least he tried."

For months after that episode, Indira was plunged into a deep depression. She dealt with it by monomaniacally immersing herself in the language and culture of the gukuy pilgrims.

During that period, she learned much of their language and culture. Enough to develop a profound admiration for the gukuy of the big valley-coupled with an equally profound fear.

For Indira also, it was one thing to know a truth in the abstract. Another to grasp it in all its concrete permutations.

It was, indeed, a Time of Troubles.

She had intended, as her first act, to convene a meeting of the council, where she would explain the truth to the leaders of the human colony. But when Adrian Harabi approached her, and hesitantly asked for advice concerning the fortified wall she was building, Indira changed her plans.

First things first. She was ruefully amused to see how easily even she could make that decision. It was indeed true, as Samuel Johnson had once said, that the prospect of being hanged concentrates the mind wonderfully.

So she accompanied Adrian to the proposed site of the wall. Soon they were joined by Joseph and his lieutenants.

Joseph was stiff and distant, at first. But as Indira began explaining the historical experience of the human race-the hard-learned techniques of fortifications and siege tactics-she could see the old warmth returning to his face.

She was both happy and sad to see it. Happy, for she loved the boy, and was gladdened to see his love for her returning. And sad, for the means of its return was his eager apprenticeship in the science of slaughter.

When the meeting convened the next day, Indira began by saying that the language of the pilgrims should no longer be referred to as "gukuy." It would be like calling the languages of Earth "human." There were five languages represented among the gukuy on the mountain, she explained to the council.

"The main language is Anshaku. That's the dominant language of the Ansha Prevalate, the great empire to the south."

"How far south?" demanded Joseph immediately.

Indira understood his concern.

"I don't think we need to worry about the Anshac, Joseph. At least, not in the immediate future. Most of the gukuy in the big valley-there are about sixty of them, by the way, and they call themselves the Pilgrims of the Way-are from Ansha. From the helot class, mostly, although there are several former members of the lesser warrior clans-"