Alphabets 2: Round for Seven Voices, Chapter 4, by DarkBeta
A guide's place was beside a sentinel. Why did Ezra have to fight it so hard? Josiah began a slow, ironic applause.
"Excellent theatre, son. If you were trying to persuade us to live down to our worser selves."
Ezra gave him a skull's grin and looked back to Chris.
"I do not presume to know the outlook of Mr. Sanchez, though I would lay money he sees the hand of the Almighty bringing together guides and sentinels." He grimaced. "If, of course, it were possible for a guide to retain legal possession of funds or properties. Best consult my attorney about that, Mr. Larabee. You wouldn't want any monies to remain unclaimed."
"I don't want your money, Standish. Nobody here wants your money."
Nathan was recovered enough to add, "Except him."
Ezra sneered at him.
"You understand my weaknesses, eh? Greed and indifference being so very . . . un-guide-like. No need to investigate my past history further, when the number of black marks make it obvious nothing is hidden."
"All lies, was it?" Chris asked.
He set his weapon on the desk. The gesture fixed Ezra's attention. The agent's expression was almost eager. Josiah frowned to see it. Of course Chris and Ezra had moved so close to bonding that Ezra had to know the sentinel wouldn't harm him.
"Young Dunne is not the only source of electronic information, or misinformation," Ezra admitted. "Others are more likely to exercise such talents for their own gain . . . and I made certain said gain was considerable."
"I don't understand! You figured you could hide from the GDP in the MAG? But guides can sort of know when they're near a sentinel, right? He couldn't keep you in the dark. Not like us," JD added, looking sulky.
Watching Ezra, Buck knocked the kid's baseball cap off, and scrubbed a hand through his hair.
"Must've been a bad shock for you, when you found out about Chris."
Josiah chuckled.
"I doubt our brother was much surprised by anything he found here. Most of us think in patterns; what's possible, probably, logical, reasonable. Guides are good at looking outside that hierarchy. The GDP is not going to look for a rogue guide anywhere near an unbonded sentinel, so that's where he placed himself."
Ezra inclined his head without looking away from Larabee.
"Merci du complement."
"Of course, when you use a guide's gifts to hide, you justify the GDP excesses."
Chris glared. Even jovial Buck looked grim. Ezra's calm cracked into rage, and Josiah hoped he'd be drawn into argument. First and foremost, guides were empaths. Distract Ezra, and his shields would waver. Then he wouldn't be able to deny what support a sentinel could be to him.
His target's expression smoothed. He settled against the front of the desk with one knee drawn up, as if seating himself for a picnic with linen cloths and a wicker hamper. Josiah took what comfort he could in the guide's instinct to find security from a sentinel at his back. Ezra made himself the center of attention, even Larabee's black regard, and then gestured elegantly for Josiah to go on.
For an instant the words were lost. Josiah hunted for the thread of his sermon.
"Settlements outside a sentinel's territory poison themselves, or they're wiped out by violence. We need sentinels. Since they quickly fail and die without guides . . . ."
Chris added a sneer to his dark look.
". . . in most cases," Josiah interpolated, ". . . if guides run and sentinels can't leave their territories to look for them, someone else has to make sure they find each other."
Ezra nodded mildly at the harness by Nathan's feet.
"Not every dating service requires locks and chains and medication."
"Not supposed to be like that," Vin said. "In the Nation, everybody listens to a guide. Not just a sentinel, but everybody. They're marked with pollen at the dances . . . ."
"You never talk about the Nation, Vin!" JD protested. "Did you like living there? Did you have a teepee? Could I go visit with you sometime?"
Buck swatted him again.
"Kid, not now!"
"So the Indian Nation uses bribery instead of coercion to suborn guides? Much more to my taste. Unfortunately I doubt anyone here could manage the price I set on my freedom."
"Can't buy a guide," Vin insisted, wild-eyed at the idea, but Larabee smiled sardonically.
"Sure about that? I've got a spread outside the city that's worth a mint."
"The point," Ezra said, looking more irritated than terrified, "is that any monetary compensation would be inadequate."
"That's what the GDP wants you to think. Otherwise they'd be out of a job. If you despise them so much, why take their word for the way things are?" Josiah asked. "Sentinels and guides paired themselves for thousands of years before the GDP stuck their noses in it, and they'll be doing it for thousands of years after the GDP is a a footnote in the history books."
"How sad that we're caught in the mayfly interim."
"We are mayflies. And our afternoon is drawing to an end. " At Josiah's roar JD thumped back against the wall again. "You read the papers. Assassins killed four of the last ten presidents. Half the coastal cities are under water. What ground is left is full of poison from the bad years. Three-quarters of the Americas don't get enough to eat. Maybe that's why there's so much anger, so many people trying to push us the rest of the way over the edge."
"Without sentinels, war, starvation, plague and death all saddle up their bony horses; is that your argument? Playhouses close, museums burn, my favorite eating places disappear?"
"Just like a guide to jeer about it," Nathan muttered.
"Without sentinels, we can't hold on long enough to heal. Once it all falls apart, we won't have another chance to build better. We save ourselves, or we choose to fail. In a time when we need them so badly, sentinels and guides are the best argument I know for the Lord's watchful care. He gives us what we need, and He gives us the opportunity to get it wrong."
Josiah caught Ezra's eyes, trying to will understanding into him. Ezra looked back as steadily.
"And that's good reason to sacrifice a generation of guides . . . or more. Depending on the pace of your improvements."
The words sounded like agreement. Josiah knew better. He'd moved too fast. The argument that seemed persuasive when he planned it was empty breath in the stuffy room.
"Guides aren't happy alone. Human beings aren't happy alone! If you know you're needed, if you know you have a companion who won't abandon you, isn't that worth putting up with what the rest of the world gets wrong?"
He'd said too much, admitted too much. When he stopped speaking the silence stretched on. Emotion made space for itself.
"Who did you know, who was a sentinel?"
He should have remembered the undercover agent's skill at reading people. Josiah stepped back, just like JD, and bumped into Nathan. Ezra got to his feet and Josiah dropped his eyes. Everyone was looking at him.
He couldn't ask Ezra to sacrifice independence while he clung to outraged privacy. He swallowed.
"My sister. Hannah. She came on-line when I left home. My father thought she was acting up because she missed me. He thought he could beat the senses out of her."
He looked apology at Nathan. They'd been friends before either of them joined the Guard. It seemed foolish now, that he'd never told Nathan about someone so important to him. Nathan bit back whatever it was he wanted to say. As Josiah looked for Ezra again, he felt the silent comfort of his friend's hand on his shoulder.
He half-expected to see Ezra's tight smile without change, as if his words had been unheard, but the guide was somber.
"She died?"
"She zoned too deep for bonding. She's at the Sisters of Mercy. They think . . . they think it won't be long."
Children brought out the protective instincts Ezra always tried to hide. Would Hannah's story sway the guide? Was the sacrifice worth it?
"I'm sorry." Ezra paused, and Josiah held his breath. "Still, it's not my problem."
Josiah found his hands working as if to strangle something. He took a heavy breath.
"You live here. You eat. You breathe. You grieve when children die and innocents are hurt. The 'problem' belongs to all of us. For two years you've fought it here with the MAG. You know you can help."
"For two years I played a part."
"I don't reckon Denver's going to stay a haven without the Mountain Area Guard," Buck said, "and the MAG needs Chris, and he needs a guide. Are you really going to let it all go down the tubes?"
"If civilization dies without the sentinel-guide bond . . . let it die."
Ezra hadn't dropped his control. The rage he showed them, he meant to show. Josiah looked from him to Larabee, and realized why his imagination had always paired the two.
"Why?" he asked the guide. "Why are you so angry?"