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A.R.Yngve DARC AGES Book Three _________________________ |
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![]() On the air |
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Chapter 9
Late at night in the month of Septam, Darc's first radio transmission began. He and Mechao had prepared the ground by sending out a beacon signal -- a recurring beep, nothing more -- at intervals during the day, so that any listeners could find the right frequency in advance. Darc had asked Shara earlier, if the city-dwellers were able to record radio messages directly. She had answered that the idea had not occurred to her. Except for laser, most mail was sent in written form inside the cities. The available technology for storing electronic information was rare and crude, thus unavailable to most people. So even though the coming broadcasts could be transcribed or spread by word of mouth, Darc's safest bet was to repeat each broadcast several times. And so, without knowing the size of his potential audience, Darc sat in the soundstage in Mechao's workshop that night. A set of clunky microphones, earphones, and switches hung down on him from cables above; nearby, Mechao and his assistants worked the power-control board and made constant checks of the oversized, humming machinery. Mechao gave the cue to begin -- Darc took a deep breath -- it was, ironically, his first radio appearance ever. The instant before he began to speak, his friends waved at him from behind the stage perimeter. He grinned back at them and his tense gut softened up, just enough for him to be able to speak into the microphone. "Hello... I will now make a voice test... one, two, three." Mechao gave a silent go-ahead, nodding excitedly; the broadcast was working! "This is the voice of Darc. This is the voice of liberty," Darc said into the microphone. He had written down a few notes in advance, but as always he went mostly on gut feeling. He chose a tone to fit the archaic age; this was not the 20th century. "I talk to you from a secret place, though I wish everyone could hear. This is the voice of liberty. In these times, liberty is not defended in the world. People live in fear, and they cannot choose their leaders. Many are poor, and food is scarce. The lands are not safe. I have come from another time, through a long sleep, and I have spent a great deal of time discovering the world again, and I have found out why things are this way. "A great secret dwells out there, in the Wastelands. I can reveal the secret of the Wastelands to you -- because I have been there and lived to tell it. I address everyone: commoners, lords, even those called witchdoctors, even the people of the Wastelands, if you can hear me. I will tell you all the secret of the Wastelands. "'What secret?' I think I hear you say. I think I hear you say: 'There is no secret in the Wastelands, nothing but wilderness and Plague and ruins and Lepers.' Wrong. The world, our world, is out there! It should belong to all of us -- the people in the cities, the people outside the cities, every one of us. Our ancestors took the world away from us, their descendants. It was our ancestors who started the Great Wars; they created the Plagues; they built the prisons we came to call 'cities'." Darc took a pause for breath. His heart was beating hard and fast, and already he was dripping with sweat. But he went on, slowly, so as not to mispronounce his words. "This is the secret, I say: The world that our ancestors took away and hid from our sight. As long as humans hide in cities, or huddle in caves in the Wastelands, we shall never become truly human again. We will starve and wither away -- until one day, when the entire planet is again under some great threat that only the united strength of all peoples could defeat -- then we will be defenseless, because we are scattered and divided. In order for us to become truly free, truly safe, truly human again, there is something I would ask you to do. One single thing..." Darc dwelled on the last syllables, drew out the tension, and said: "I ask you to open the cities. "Yes, I know how frightening this may sound. But imagine, just for a moment, that you could. Imagine a world with open cities. People could come and go as they liked, travel freely, see the wonders of the world with their own eyes. Travel would no longer be the privilege of the few rich, who can afford to fly. Boats could go everywhere, up rivers, across the oceans. Men could travel to other planets again, like in the Golden Age. "And yet, there is one thing that stops us from opening the cities to the world. What is it? There are many words for it. The Unclean Touch. The Plague. Pseudo-Leprosy, as Al-Masur names it. But I say to you: Those are false names. What is the Plague, after all? A divine punishment? A law of nature? No! It was created by humans, and humans should be able to undo it. But fear and ignorance has kept the Plague alive for centuries. "Therefore I say to you: the real enemy that stops us from opening the world, is fear and ignorance. Thus I have chosen to fight fear and ignorance. This is the purpose of my message, and there shall be more messages soon. If you listen, and learn, you will know the ways of freedom again. "This is the voice of Darc. This is the voice of liberty." Darc gestured to Mechao, who switched to the beacon signal. Darc wiped his sweaty brow. His audience was stunned for a full ten seconds -- then Mechao's family, Dohan, and Shara began to applaud him. Even Eye-Leg was able to listen, sitting in a special chair in the background. She made a gurgling-clicking sound and smiled. Shara hurried over to Darc and hugged him. "That was fantastic," she said. "How many people do you think heard it?" "Don't know," Darc said with a shrug. "Ten, a thousand, a million... Damn! I didn't say enough." He added: "Besides, it was a gloomy, sad speech... I should have sounded uplifting instead." Shara grabbed his shoulders. "Couldn't you sing?" she asked. "I heard you sing the ancient songs of the King for the Lepers! You... and Pop Shah. Together." Darc blinked at her, and scratched his head. "Sing to, what, thousands or millions of listeners? I'm no real singer! They'd think I'm crazy, a foolish minstrel!" "Are you afraid?" "No, I'm not! It's just that... I want to use the radio broadcasts for serious matters, not just... entertainment." Shara almost smiled in her astonishment. Waving her arms, she exclaimed: "You just don't know, do you? Why do you think people look at you that way when you sing? There's power in that music! The redeeming power of the Sacred Song, the call for heavenly reunion with the All-Mother!" Once more, Darc was baffled by how religion pervaded all thought of those around him. "I didn't expect you, a believer in Kristos, to say that." "I don't give a damn about what I believe now! Ordinary people wouldn't dream of singing those songs outside of a church! But you can! You're not afraid of breaking the rules." In a matter of minutes, Darc saw the reason of Shara's idea. He chuckled. Why, it would be just like those amateur gigs back in his youth! "Call for Pop Shah," he said. "Pop'll get a brand new bag!" |
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