“You wanted to talk to the three of us, Hayeel?” Rena asked.
“Yes. I think you can probably guess, though. Call it encouraging one another.”
“Sorry, I'm being slow, after witnessing Yanesa's mother's arrest,” Rena said.
“None of you are using your full names, but are dropping hints. I predict mutual encouragement if you change your habits. After tea, I, or maybe Esme, will challenge everyone at the meeting over that terrible saying. Perhaps after that you might consider saying something like 'there are many good nobles who have died, but some still live, and hope to be good while living.”
“Such as baroness Renela of Resk, you mean?” Rena asked.
“For instance,” Hayeel agreed.
“And Yanelana of Yansk, heiress to a barony.”
“Kelara of Karet, sadly, is likely to be countess quite soon.”
“And of course duchesses and princesses and a certain princess regent.” Hal said. “You made yourself abundantly clear even to me to me, Rena. Esme says you were shouting to us.”
“You mean you understood though Esme?”
“No, directly.”
Rena's father had noticed that Hal was approaching the group, and decided it wasn't a private meeting after all. “Very well done, Rena! Directing a message to almost everyone in a meeting but not the ones you didn't trust? Well done, indeed.”
“Daddy! Hush!”
“Yana and Kara, good to see you as adults. I presume you don't remember your mothers visiting our little home in Resk to say hello to baby Rena?”
“I have vague memories, but only vague ones.” Kara said. Yana nodded. “It was a very long time ago.”
“Twenty-two years,” he replied, with a deep sadness.
“Daddy, you're not supposed to give away my age.”
“Renela, you're going to be sharing pretty much every thought with these young ladies pretty soon. Get used to secrets coming out.”
“You did that deliberately,” Rena accused her father.
“Your father means well,” Hayeel said “but doesn't know what I was just planning with you.”
“Is it still necessary?” Yana asked, somewhat nervous.
“That depends if you want to give and receive some encouragement,” Hayeel said, enigmatically. “Who wants a drink?”
“We have, you'll notice, one secretary and two observers,” Hayeel said. “You might be glad to know that none of them have any link to sinister forces of the past or present, and they're all rather worried for what you're getting into.
"As a confidence building measure, I'd like each of you, in turn to stand up and say what they think about the slogan of the mobs against nobles. And I know you're normally always first or last, Rena, how about you're exactly in the middle this time?”
“Oh, stop teasing, Hayeel. Let's just speak up in seating order, starting on the back row for once?”
“Does that mean I start?” Yana asked. “What do I say?”
“Have you said it the slogan willingly?” Hayeel asked, “Have you ever felt pressured to say it? How did you react if you were?”
“I've never said it, it's a hateful saying.” Yana said.
The girl beside her, Sashan, said, “I never wanted to say it. There was a school play, we were re-enacting the history of the revolution. The teacher wanted me in the mob, and said, 'you're not a main part and everyone has to be in the play. I said I wanted to be a voice of reason. And the teacher said 'there weren't any, dear. If you wanted to live through the mobs you needed to join the mobs, or they got trampled on you.' So I said that I'd be one of the people that got trampled on, because it was a horrible thing to say. And the teacher warned my class-mates not to actually trample me, but I got bruises.”
“I said it once, before I knew what it meant. My mum smacked me so hard, and told me what had happened.” the next girl said, “I cried so much, she thought she'd injured me.”
“I was in Sashan's class,” the next girl, Mari, said “and I didn't want to say it, but I wasn't as brave as her. I didn't say all of it, and I told on the boy who stamped on her, and he got kicked off the school sport team because of it. He was a bully, and I got bruises from him too because he guessed it was me. I resolved next time I'd be there next to Sashan.”
The tales, the attitudes, carried on, until Rena's turn. “I've said it. I've said it in a debate, not as a slogan to be agreed with but ascribing it to the other side as a summary of what they're saying, and then trying to rip their arguments to pieces. I won the debate, but it was much closer than I'd hoped. It was scary. I wanted to shock, but it seemed that so many agreed with it, without thinking.”
“People still believe the revolution was a good thing.” Ada said, “They don't see. They celebrate the death of the emperor and of all the nobility in the same breath. I've never said it, but we were supposed to at pre-school, on revolution day. I cried instead.”
More tales of bowing to or standing against the social pressure followed. Then Hayeel stood, “There is clearly a deep wound in Tesk. But there is some hope too. The high council will be formed again, and changes can be made. One thing that is clear is that attitudes will need challenging. The trial of the priestess is probably going to shock people. Some will not believe it at all, she will probably have supporters churning out rumours that it's all a plot of Caneth to justify it or the Isles intervening in Tesk internal affairs. You will need to build consensus, and you are scared, thinking you need allies, natural allies you can count on. You can count on Caneth and the Isles, but you need internal allies. Ada, and some of you others said all the nobles had been killed. Would any like to comment?”
“The nobles are not all dead.” Kara said. “Lots of good ones died, but there are still some living who hope to be good nobles too. Elakart of Karet who should be countess still lives, as does her daughter and heir Kelara. Elakart is unwell, but told me she that if the high council is once more active, she will happily reclaim her title.” Karet, was one half of the city, including the docks.
“Yalek of Yansk longs to claim the title baron and will pass it to his daughter Yanelana, who will pass it, God willing, to her daughter.” Yana said. “Yalek normally uses another name, and you might even recognise him, since he's reasonably highly posted in the peace party.”
“Renela of Resk prays please can I use what power I might have over the barony of Resk for good, Lord, and may I use the ability to send thoughts I inherited from my mother and her mother and her mother before her since the time of the emperor for good and never ill, and may I be patient teaching it to my fellow nobles if they do not know it.”
“Urm, was that all quote, Rena?” Ada asked.
“It was all extemporaneous prayer.” Rena said.
“That means that Renela made it up on the spot,” Esme said, to Ada's puzzled expression.
“And you quoted it?” Ada asked.
“May I speak, princess regent?” Ada's father asked. “Ardela, my daughter, is being a bit dense, soon-to-be-confirmed baroness, and I'm pretty sure she needs your training. My parents told me on my seventeenth birthday that if the council was ever resurrected my name was really Ralek of Ranet, which I think means that the whole of the city is not without nobility. May God help us use our constitutional powers wisely.”
“Excellent!” exclaimed Yana, “Mother will be so pleased to meet you! She's often worried about the imbalance of half the city being without a noble.”
“Can someone explain what the constitutional role of the nobility is?” Ada asked. “It sounds like daddy left some enormous gaps in my education.”
“The high council cannot remove a politician except that the lowest penalty for perjury before the high council is exile from Tesk.” Esme said, “The council's task is to ensure that laws were just; The judges' task is to ensure the laws are applied fairly with due process; the nobles have the constitutional role of being the guardians of society from individual corruption, and have the authority to bring anyone paid by the state — including politicians — to be questioned before a court or the high council, and suspend or dismiss them from office even without that judicial process.
They didn't need the high council, but without the high council or popular support they felt insecure in their role. They also have the role of judging those accused of following the doom-guard. I'm not very certain why.”
Rena replied, “That first role was that of their ancestresses, the imperial wives or concubines or whatever you want to call them, under the emperor. They added the second when they worked together with the people, coordinating the overthrow of the doom-guard, and brave young Capela, just made duchess of Captita, who pushed the old emperor off the ship during a storm, and triggered the start of the revolution, and it was Arelan of Resk who plunged the knife into his son, ending the dynasty.”
“Tell us more, Renela,” Henela said, “You have knowledge, share it.”
“There were two ways into that group, whatever we call it: to be an imperial daughter who their half-brother wanted as wife or to be picked from the population by the doom-guard. An unwanted half-sister was free to marry any she chose, anywhere. Many stayed on Tesk, of course, but they saw the doom-guard in their corruption and the academics in their inhumanity, so few married there. But it was cyclical: many of their daughters were collected by the doom-guard. When a child was picked by the doom-guard they were met by the harem — the collected wives of the emperor — to decide if they had the right qualities for doom-guard, academia or administration, with the wives being foremost administrators. One of those qualities came to be making their thoughts known while saying something else, a useful ability to pick those who shared the attunement of hope the system would change. I may have confused some of you earlier, for which I'm sorry. I was trying to make myself heard. If you heard only my thoughts, that is not insightfulness, that is just the attunement of hope. I think that Kara was not trying as hard as me to be understood when she said not many acknowledged the emperor ruled from Tesk. Am I right?”
“You're right,” Yana said. “So, who, heard me thinking that Rena was really going out of her way to be unpopular with politicians?”
Hal and the other three men didn't put up their hands. “Hope looks like it won't disappoint,” Esme said. “But wow this is going to be complex. So, speaking plainly, if any of you are having second, third or fourth thoughts about being on the high council while it's trying to conduct a reeducation programme and what amounts to a restoration of old Tesk as written in its constitution before it joined the Kingdom of the Isles, then feel free to get out while you still can and ask Henela for her Hal-free discussion on what happened during the revolution.
"I think we'll all understand if you feel this is getting more complex every hour.”
“More hopeful every hour,” Yana said.
“No one going?” Esme said, when no one moved. “Then I suggest that we warn the politicians that tomorrow we'll be demonstrating that we have the gift of Tesk, and formally be declaring an extraordinary meeting of the high council.”
“And because I love my country,” Yenessa said, with tears in her eyes, “I hope that the high council will be accepting the oaths of some nobles of Tesk who will then request the princess regent allows them to exercise their constitutional role in the interrogation and trial of the priestess of the doom-guard, so that Tesk does not suffer the double humiliation of not only allowing this evil to return, but also not being able to judge it.”
“You didn't need to be the one to say that, Yanesa,” Yana said.
“Who else should? Who else would say that? My mother has finally shown her true face. I have mainly fought her over one main subject, that of going to church and giving my life to God. I felt God telling me to come here and I remembered that passage about Jesus bringing division in families, and still I told her I thought I would come. I expected that to be the battle, but she looked calculating, and then she agreed. I pray she will still repent. She still lives. But who would have asked that when her memories are searched and her crimes are listed and her head is removed it all be done in the name of Tesk, if not me? Who would have risked hurting me?”
“You are right, Yanesa,” Rena said, “We would at least have hesitated.”
“But we must not, you see? Grandma took me to church and mother before her. Someone recruited mother, probably after father died, ten years ago. That's when she stopped going to church and started being involved in politics. That's when she started telling me stories about old religions until I told her to stop, because Jesus is the only truth. She's not the only one, and the high council and the nobles must be firm. There might be other relatives, we don't know how far the evil has spread.”
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“We will find out, Yanesa,” Yana said, “but first let us all pray for you, and for your mother to turn from her evil. And maybe God will lead us to change our plans.”
“Honourable politicians of Tesk, we're here not because my father's throne is here, but because it's the biggest room in the palace,” Esme said. “Earlier today we, that is to say everyone in the conference room, had a shock. Some of you, probably, think that you're here to hear something about the high council of Tesk. Some of you have probably been preparing your arguments to protest against it being legitimate. We're not here for that, sorry to disappoint you. No, we've called you together to tell you that young Yanesa's mother, who was observing on behalf of the mils party, is now in prison for a crime that, as far as I know, has not been tried anywhere in Caneth, Tesk, Tew, or the Three Isles since the aliens visited. The lady ambassador Hayeel tells me it is a crime known still in the Dahel empire, in very remote villages on the border of Tew, and that perhaps one or two cases come to light every five years there. A rare crime, a shocking crime, at least to me, and one that if handled badly could lead to rioting and mobs that would make what happened during the revolution be seen as insignificant. “We were, as some of you know, going to have a discussion of how history is viewed differently in different places. We've postponed that, but we want to still look at some history. I've just been dusting off some ancient books in the royal Caneth library, and I'm going to be summarising them for you. Some of you will want to know why I've called you together to tell you old stories. But these are not just old stories, these are the things that have given Tesk, Caneth, Tew and the Isles a common language, a common culture in so many ways. Yes, that's right, I'm going back to the first revolution. I know I never studied it much. We all learned about the brave slaves going log from one place to another, we all know about the doom-guard stealing people away from their homes, some for death, others for the academy, but other details... we forget them, don't we? Was the emperor killed before the public revolt, or during? Was it really all organised by slaves? How was it that the organisation known as the doom-guard was annihilated in just a few days, if we believe the children's stories we learn at school? Some of you are even now wondering why I'm giving a history lesson as a response to a crime. Others are wondering if you can sneak away. No. You may not. The long and complex introduction is because the children's stories are wrong. The doom-guard was not destroyed in a day, and the crime that Yanesa's mother is under arrest for is for being a priestess of dum-semb, a priestess of the doom-guard. And if any try to sneak out of this meeting the guards are under orders to arrest you on suspicion of also being a follower of that evil faith. And when I am giving this little history lesson, I want you to ponder if there is a common saying that you learned at school which would be a real favourite with the remnant of the doom-guard. I'll have another question for you later on.
“So, ancient history. Twenty-five years before the end of the windward empire, the then-emperor died. A young woman called Capta, daughter of the old emperor, and her sister were taken to the high cliffs above Captita by their half-brother the new emperor. Capta was chosen as his bride, given the name Captela, and made ruler over the city of Captita. Her sister was not, and the new emperor sacrificed Capta's sister to the the storm-god in a grizzly ritual that I'll not describe in detail. Capta had to witness her beloved sister's death, and then became his wife a few minutes later. It was an unusual step, normally a new emperor allowed his half-sisters to go and marry someone else a long way from home and live a happy life, unless of course the doom-guard came along and decided to take their daughters as prospective new royal brides. That wasn't unusual, because the royal brides were unusual. Generation after generation had been chosen for intelligence, ability to manage a crowd, and quite a few had an ability to project their thoughts to people with a similar experience or thought, while saying something else. They shone like stars and the doom-guard specifically looked for stars, that was one of their roles in life. Of course they also looked for sacrifice victims, slaves for themselves and research subjects if an academic wanted a few dozen expendable victims.
“But, covered in her sister's blood, Capta made a private vow of revenge. The new emperor took quite a lot of his half-sisters as wives, far more than was normal; it was strange. Sacrificing the rejected sisters as part of the marriage ceremony was unheard of. At the annual meeting of the wives of the king, called the harem, Capta and the others who could started projecting their thoughts to those who'd been horrified by the changes, and they started the beginning of the plot. Over the next decades, Capta and her co-conspirators ruled their baronies and counties had children and developed their plots. They developed a secret language and they started rumours among the peasants. The countesses and baronesses would visit each village and when they left people talked about the ideas that had come to their heads: change was coming, not immediately, but soon. We could get ready, scythes and knives get lost, that's known. Well someone could hide a scythe in the village this year, and another the next. Bend them, break them, they make lovely sharp knives. There's a lot of hard wood that could make daggers here, it'd be so right to plunge one in a doom-guard, if everyone else did it at the same time. Aim for the eyes, the unprotected throat, the shoulders of that priestess where she boasts about how many she's killed with her axe. Then all the pieces were in place. The harem agreed that the trigger would be the death of the old emperor. The news of his death would be carried by the doom-guard, who would, as always on such dramatic changes, head out to the edges of the empire telling the news, and on the way back to their base take with them an army of peasants and slaves for the sacrifices. Be prepared, the messages said, when the message comes that the emperor is dead, everyone must be ready to act at the same time. Not that day, let the messenger pass. A death-message travels in a week, the sacrifices will be two weeks to the day.
Give no hints. The doom-guard may be frightening, but if we hit them together, ten days after his death, then we can get them all. “And the countesses and baronesses did their tours, and people heard, the baroness is with you, ten days, remember. And then, pregnant yet again by her half-brother, Captela, died. Her daughter, Capela went to her father and said, 'Captela my mother, your first wife, is dead. Will you come to her funeral, my emperor?' And the horrible old man looked at Capela his daughter and smiled with a smile that spoke of full incest. 'Yes, my daughter, I will come to your mother's funeral. You will take her place.' And then, on the route to Captita, there was a storm, and she said, 'My father, my emperor, my husband, will you not talk to the storm god, and ask why this storm is so violent?' But she knew why it was so violent, because she had prayed to God most high, to give her an opportunity. And as he was standing at the side of the ship, while the soldiers and sailors were busy, she picked up a heavy barrel and ran with it towards him. He turned and saw her coming, but she was too close, and surprise only made him unstable. The barrel hit him in the chest, and he was knocked overboard. At the same time a huge wave came, and Capela was drenched, and screamed. The soldiers looked around, and the emperor was gone and Capela his new wife, duchess of Captita was drenched and screaming that the emperor had been washed overboard, that she had seen the God of storms and oceans come and had taken him. They were confused, because they didn't remember one god having both titles, but one does not interfere with the actions of gods. And they returned to the centre of the empire, to Tesk, and the message went out that the emperor was dead. The new emperor was the first born-son of the old emperor, so it was, so it had always been. And an emperor would have no rivals, so when the first born son reached sixteen, and had raped his first girls, and some of them had became pregnant, then all his half-brothers were killed. So, there was only one prince, and he lived in the city, but actually, he mostly escaped his guards and slept in the villages, because that annoyed his mother. On the tenth night after his father's death he was in the village of Resk, where he had planned to rape and then sacrifice a particular girl who he had seen his mother smile at. But he had heard the fighting, and he saw the villagers rising up as one and killing the doom-guard.
So he went to the baronial mansion, and said, 'You must let me in, I am your emperor.' And baroness Arelan of Resk said, 'Yes, of course, emperor, but I heard the fighting and locked the door and put the keys down. I will get them.' And she picked up the keys, and she picked the knife from the body of a dead doom-guard who had earlier sought refuge with her, and she opened the door to him, and just like the doom-guard, she stabbed him through the heart.
“The doom guard did not all die that day, of course, many tried to hide their tattoos and hid, or fled to Dahel. And of course, only the full priests and priestesses wore tattoos, acolytes did not, nor did slave collectors.
So the countesses and the baronesses gave orders that the altars be smashed, and that anyone suspected of being a member of the doom-guard be brought to them for trial. 'Do not let innocents be killed, that would be terrible!' And there was great rejoicing in the land, except among the academics. Because some of them, maybe even all of them, had been part of the doom-guard, and had enjoyed the freedom to torture and dissect when they wanted, and they were put on trial too. Those who had requisitioned slaves for death-experiments were executed, those who had not and who swore to preserve life and knowledge were allowed to live, but there was a law made, that anyone teaching what the doom-guard taught was to be executed. And the library of the academy was searched, and the teachings of the doom-guard were burnt. Almost none of it survived, but we have snippets from the records of their trials. They were the elite. They were an exclusive group, you had to work hard to be in, or you were useless, unless it was to be a sacrifice or a slave. But in any case, either you were elite or your were an animal. Once you were in, you obeyed, without question. Other laws were for the animals. In any dispute, the member of the elite was right, the animals wrong. How could it be otherwise? You married — if you wanted to — within the elite, why would you want to bring up a child with an animal? And so on. And they added a new teaching as time went on, regarding the nobility: the descendents of the baronesses and countesses. I can show you the documents, written before any of our grandparents were alive, before the aliens came, that have probably not been read in hundreds of years. We forgot. We forgot that the doom-guard had not all died.
The nobility stayed in their posts and it became hereditary, but of course they were not an elite, and they married the ordinary people, though of course they preferred bright people and knowing they were already related they tried to make sure they didn't inbreed any more. But they had the power that the doom-guard remnant wanted, they had authority they doom-guard remnant wanted. But they were still an elite. And now... where do you find an elite? An elite where outsiders are considered little more than animals? An elite where obedience is the rule, where morality is for other people, where faithfulness to other members of the elite is more important than the rule of law or decency? Where not questioning what is behind someone's actions is more important than sticking up for the people they injure or steal from? Where do you find that sort of thing, ladies and gentlemen? I expect you can guess what that new teaching was. You or your class-mates have chanted it at school.”
“You insult not just us, but all of Tesk, princess,” a senior politician said, making it clear what he thought of Esme's title.
“Do I? All of it? Even the remaining nobles? I thought I was just insulting the immoral descendents of the bloodthirsty philosophy of the doom-guard. And those who listen to its priests and priestesses, of course. Or do you say that all of Tesk supports the doom-guard and it's religion?”
The politician gave a 'hrumph' and didn't bother replying.
“On behalf of my own Tesk blood, and on behalf of his imperial highness crown-prince Salay, I remind this gathering of the treaty of all nations. The one who refuses to answer an accusation regarding dum-semb shall be tried as if admitting guilt.”
“Dum-semb isn't a religion, it's an uplifting, freeing ...”
“It is your death!” roared king Val from the back of the room, interrupting.
“It is the vile philosophy of the terror-cult of the old empire. Ignorance of its name is no excuse, you're supposed to recognise it as vile, not defend it.”
“Guards,” Esme said as two guards moved to arrest the man, “He must be questioned before he is executed in the prescribed manner according to his crime, depending if he is determined to be worshipper, acolyte, or priest. Warn the jailer that he is not to receive food or water.”
“You can't do this to me!” The politician raged as he was dragged away.
“Members of the Tesk parliament, let me make it clear that even if you have changed the law on Tesk, the law of Caneth, Tew, the Isles and Dahel is clear. Membership of or support for the religion of the doom-guard is a capital crime.”
“Highness, might it not be possible that a new philosophy has taken the name of an old religion, in total ignorance?” an elderly politician asked, visibly shaking.
“Not when the priestess we arrested earlier wears the tattoos of a doom-guard priestess, no.”
“Then I must throw myself on your mercy, highness. For I have sinned against the God I grew up believing in far more greatly than I believed.”
“Let others who acknowledge their guilt in this matter and wish to confess their sins to God move to that side of the room,” Esme said. “Those who think they might have been on the edges of it, but never heard its name or learned much about it may stand in the middle.
"Those who heard the name but rejected it may also go to the middle, Those who wish to claim they never willingly repeated the slogan of the counter-revolution may go the the other side of the room, again if you've said it willingly, then the middle.
No, I don't mean anyone who's been in our meetings. Other parents, if you've followed the mob in shouting disgusting slogans, then the middle of the room.
If you've never willingly said it, then to that side. Thank-you.”
Of the twenty-nine politicians, twelve were admitting guilt, five were claiming they'd never willingly said the slogan, and twelve were in the middle. Three parents were in the middle, three claiming innocence, and one man looking ashamed and fearful went to join those knowing they needed mercy without instruction.
My prince, my prince, today and yesterday... joys and terrors.
I have met one girl who meets the criteria you wrote of, but she has no relatives who are slaves. We both hope that what I was told about that being a criteria is true, for there is a young man she has her eye on, and I cannot imagine her leaving the duties she sees for herself in Tesk. She is a student of politics and history, as well as a baroness. The nobles of Tesk have been all but destroyed, and the people of Tesk repeat still the terrible cries of their revolution 'the only good noble is a dead noble'. I do not know if Dahel ever heard of this cry before, but it is more terrible than mere treason, it is part of the ancient teaching of dum-semb. The dungeon of Caneth is now full, and an extra set of manacles had to be made. A priestess was found this morning - the mother of one of the candidates for the high council.
The daughter has brought great honour on herself by calling for her to be tried by the high council, both for the honour of the council and so of Tesk, but also because the council must be strong, and must not allow their compassion for one member to override what is right. Five politicians have also joined the priestess. One father and a number of politicians got much too close to be safe, but did not realise what the name meant, and were attracted by the economic benefits that joining was supposed to bring. As is fitting, they have repented of their greed, confessed all and turned wholeheartedly to the saviour. One politician claimed to have never been involved at all, but was quickly discovered. He is one of the five I mentioned earlier.
Of the thirty candidates, all have developed the gift of Tesk. So now there are thirty six and not six. They still have much to learn, though. I was involved in checking the politicians and parents. Thirty five between the six of us. I am tired, my prince, exhausted emotionally and mentally, but I wanted to write before I fall asleep. I don't know when I'll be able to send this to you, there are no ships planing to go to Dahel now. I hope another ship comes from Dahel, with a letter from you, or even yourself. I'm greedy, I know.
Tomorrow we have a day in which we must teach the new council members how to use their new gift. We must also sit and witness the priestess being cross-examined. I expect Esme will be tempted to use her gift on the priestess.
I think it is a dangerous thing, for I'm sure the priestess knows how to lay a trap. Therefore, as I have faced more horror in my life than any of the six, I will say that I should do it. Esme will say she has more experience, and has ordered deaths, forgetting that today I did just that also, for I invoked the treaty of all nations when the others did not recognise the name of the priestess's religion. And then Hal's sisters will point out that they have had the gift for years, and their grandmother had them practice setting traps on each other. I do not know who will win that argument as we try to protect one another from risk. I have spent a long time talking this through with God, and trust that God will convince us. Will you tell me that my place in the prophecy means I must not face risk, my prince? What of Esme's? What of her marriage, due to begin in three days' time? These are a few of the thoughts I put aside into God's hands and think on happier ones. It is almost five weeks now since I first wrote to you. I do not know how fast the ship will get to you with my first letter. I will fall asleep praying that it brings you joy, my prince, even as Academician Teng brings scary messages of imminent destruction.
